Read this article. It explains how "public" schools began and how they have evolved.
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Saturday, August 29, 2020
A House Divided Cannot Stand
I read a good amount of science fiction. One of the saddest books was one called "Childhood's End" by Arthur Clarke. Written in 1953, it was a statement built on the changing society from the early to middle 20th century. It discussed a generation gap in brutal terms. In the story mysterious Overlords begin to systematically destroy human civilization by removing or negating all vestiges of culture. Indeed, some parts of culture become toxic in order to dissuade subsequent generations from honoring.
The saddest part of this story is the end, where the youngest generation begin to manifest powers. In the case of what was then Cold War Europe these were written as what we would called supernatural behaviors with the youngest children being the most profoundly impacted. Eventually the children become dissociated with older generations and drift away to the unknown, disappearing one by one.
Perhaps you see where I am going. During Clarke's time the biggest fear was nuclear war as promoted by the Soviet Union. Today it is a cultural tug of war that resembles a WWE tag team death match more than a civil discourse as envisioned by the Founders. But who are the Overlords? Right now it appears that Academia has been a secure nest for radicalism to hatch it's adherents. They in turn lure, intimidate and attack all opposition without facts and with the blessings of the same Academic Overlords.
As people who have worked our entire lives seeing families survive through intimidation brought about by lack of oil, too many taxes, mindless regulations, corrupt manipulations of the market, we more than anyone else should have some sort of say in what the future holds. But we are being denied that opportunity. The epithet "Okay Boomer" is every bit as dismissive and offensive as any racial, gender or religious slur. Unlike the folks out on the streets embracing anarchy, we've seen this before, but never here.
Our children are being turned against us. When you take out those that vote for socialism because they've always supported it, the majority of supporters for socialism are young. They have had it much easier than earlier generations. Many of them do not remember a time before cell phones and computers. These same groups, cossetted and protected by a trophy for everyone mentality, seem to think their words are golden. In fact so much do they believe this that even when discussing facts, they refuse because it's not on their own carefully curated sources of information.
Beyond Academia, this is an issue of limited media sources. When I worked in a newsroom 30 years ago there were reporters writing local stories or writing stories on state and national issues with a view toward how it impacts their city or town. Now those writers are gone. There are columnists-who are more often the official spox for whatever views the editorial board holds. But the straight news meant for local consumption doesn't exist outside of the Sports Pages. Instead we have glorified copy boys and girls who take a wire story from AP or Reuters or CNN or McLatchy and relabel it as their own. When you narrow the sources of news, you can more easily control it. And when you see the prevailing narrative presented, it lets you know who is controlling it.
Between Academia with a mission and Journalism with a grudge, we have seen launched an idea that freedom of speech is only okay when you agree and intimidation using violence is honorable. When you watch Republicans being threatened and assaulted outside an event, harassed at dinner, doxxed, followed home and harassed and realize the glee with which the media is showing this, it should tell you all you know about the confluence of the MSM and the Left. When you consider these things never seem to occur to Democrats, it's a tell and a wink from the media that they know who's paying them behind the scenes.
The end of the book "Childhood's End" goes like this:
"The Overlords are eager to escape from their own evolutionary dead end by studying the Overmind, so Rodricks's information is potentially of great value to them. By radio, Rodricks describes a vast burning column ascending from the planet. As the column disappears, Rodricks experiences a profound sense of emptiness when the children have gone. Then material objects and the Earth itself begin to dissolve into transparency. Rodricks reports no fear, but a powerful sense of fulfillment. The Earth evaporates in a flash of light. Karellen looks back at the receding Solar System and gives a final salute to the human species."
I'm not suggesting this election is the end of the world. But it may be the end of our world as we know it. Some of the propositions from the Sanders' platform, blindly accepted by the DNC (although nearly a third of the DNC convention delegates opposed it.) is so economically catastrophic that our nation would be transformed and not in a good way. Add to that demands of Antifa and BLM to seize the assets of others to appease their own politics of envy and you have the basis for what could be the destruction of the union and the conversion of the USA into Venezuela. This election matters. Vote like you have a brain.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
You Have To Pick A Side
Back in the day, playground games consisted of staged battles. Whether it was Red Rover or kickball or dodgeball, the idea was to win. And to win you had to pick a side or have the skills for a side to choose you. The winners were victorious. Nobody got a trophy. Everyone still traded lunches and shared crayons.
Now we have a society raised on the concept that everyone is entitled to win, even if they don't have the skills. This type of society breeds complacency. If you aren't invested in the outcome, it doesn't matter who wins. The idea that "other people" will make all the political decisions and everything will turn out fine is not proving out as our nation moves through 2020, the Year of Asterisks. You can see this played out in the Jimmy Stewart movie "Shenandoah." It's the story of a many who simply doesn't want to be involved in the Civil War swirling about him. He wants to tend his crops and raise his kids. Then one side takes all his horses and cattle. The other side occupies his house. One son is forcibly conscripted by one army, the other runs away to join the other. It's one of the saddest movies I've ever watched and illustrates clearly every parent's deepest fear when whispers of Civil War 2.0 arise. The bottom line is, you have to pick a side.
Complacency is not apathy. Complacency is a type of laziness. It's a method of pretending that other people know better than you do. As a result many in this country have literally thrown away all intentions of participating to make things better, leaving the most extreme and dangerous people with the voting power to destroy everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING. The people you see in the streets are for the most part young, uneducated and indoctrinated to a limited narrative that leaves out much of the story. Unfortunately they are scary in big numbers. Using those numbers, activist from branded organizations such as BLM and Antifa further dip these nuggets into the poison narrative of the Left. At some point it moves from concern, to hysteria, to groupthink that allows people to equate a Civil War headstone to Dachau. This is where we are at. And still we have those who think if we just give in, things will be better.
There are lots of nice people in the world. Being nice is the path of least resistance. There's an old saying "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." We're seeing a great deal of shock from nice people in blue states who have suddenly realized that all the nice words and kind actions they believed they were supporting are in reality a nanny state that has taken away their basic rights. Unfortunately these same nice people believe if we just give in-give the mobs what they want and just keep spilling out and letting them bully entire groups into silence things will be fine. They have not yet learned the lesson "It Will Never Be Enough."
The Mob is becoming a more demographically driven entity. Most are young, urban and computer savvy. They are also a very desirable commercial demographic to be exploited, which is why you see big name corporations posting black blocks and funding foundations and programs with millions of dollars that will be eaten up by advertising and bureaucracy and give precious little to the targeted issue or groups. This leads other groups to think this is a mainstream belief narrative and because nice people want to be liked, they conform. I deeply fear this need to be loved, this desperate desire to be accepted and not to feel they are "bad" will lead people to vote against their own interests. Who in their right mind would vote for idea that are going to seize massive amounts of your income while limiting your personal freedom? I guess we're going to find out in November. Conservatives had better start talking.
Now we have a society raised on the concept that everyone is entitled to win, even if they don't have the skills. This type of society breeds complacency. If you aren't invested in the outcome, it doesn't matter who wins. The idea that "other people" will make all the political decisions and everything will turn out fine is not proving out as our nation moves through 2020, the Year of Asterisks. You can see this played out in the Jimmy Stewart movie "Shenandoah." It's the story of a many who simply doesn't want to be involved in the Civil War swirling about him. He wants to tend his crops and raise his kids. Then one side takes all his horses and cattle. The other side occupies his house. One son is forcibly conscripted by one army, the other runs away to join the other. It's one of the saddest movies I've ever watched and illustrates clearly every parent's deepest fear when whispers of Civil War 2.0 arise. The bottom line is, you have to pick a side.
Complacency is not apathy. Complacency is a type of laziness. It's a method of pretending that other people know better than you do. As a result many in this country have literally thrown away all intentions of participating to make things better, leaving the most extreme and dangerous people with the voting power to destroy everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING. The people you see in the streets are for the most part young, uneducated and indoctrinated to a limited narrative that leaves out much of the story. Unfortunately they are scary in big numbers. Using those numbers, activist from branded organizations such as BLM and Antifa further dip these nuggets into the poison narrative of the Left. At some point it moves from concern, to hysteria, to groupthink that allows people to equate a Civil War headstone to Dachau. This is where we are at. And still we have those who think if we just give in, things will be better.
There are lots of nice people in the world. Being nice is the path of least resistance. There's an old saying "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." We're seeing a great deal of shock from nice people in blue states who have suddenly realized that all the nice words and kind actions they believed they were supporting are in reality a nanny state that has taken away their basic rights. Unfortunately these same nice people believe if we just give in-give the mobs what they want and just keep spilling out and letting them bully entire groups into silence things will be fine. They have not yet learned the lesson "It Will Never Be Enough."
The Mob is becoming a more demographically driven entity. Most are young, urban and computer savvy. They are also a very desirable commercial demographic to be exploited, which is why you see big name corporations posting black blocks and funding foundations and programs with millions of dollars that will be eaten up by advertising and bureaucracy and give precious little to the targeted issue or groups. This leads other groups to think this is a mainstream belief narrative and because nice people want to be liked, they conform. I deeply fear this need to be loved, this desperate desire to be accepted and not to feel they are "bad" will lead people to vote against their own interests. Who in their right mind would vote for idea that are going to seize massive amounts of your income while limiting your personal freedom? I guess we're going to find out in November. Conservatives had better start talking.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Dear Cardi B,
I know you didn't ask to be a role model.
I know you're entitled to have and hold your own opinions.
But at some point you bear responsibility for those emulating you for their actions.
When you look at the violence in Minneapolis and try to justify it, you do two things. First, you suggest that people of color are some how incapable of responding in a rational way to events. Before you take offense, remember that in this same city a woman named Justine Damond called the police because she thought she was witnessing domestic violence. During that event, the first Somali cop hired shot and killed Justine. Justine was white and the cop was black.
Were there riots of white people?
Did white people loot stores and steal big screen TVs?
Did white people set fire to schools, stores and a police station?
Please explain how this is in any way justified.
It's almost like saying you believe people of color are incapable of behaving any other way.
I know you're entitled to have and hold your own opinions.
But at some point you bear responsibility for those emulating you for their actions.
When you look at the violence in Minneapolis and try to justify it, you do two things. First, you suggest that people of color are some how incapable of responding in a rational way to events. Before you take offense, remember that in this same city a woman named Justine Damond called the police because she thought she was witnessing domestic violence. During that event, the first Somali cop hired shot and killed Justine. Justine was white and the cop was black.
Were there riots of white people?
Did white people loot stores and steal big screen TVs?
Did white people set fire to schools, stores and a police station?
Please explain how this is in any way justified.
It's almost like saying you believe people of color are incapable of behaving any other way.
Secondly you give rioters a justification, flimsey as it is, for criminal activity.. I believe you said "It is What it is."
What it is is this: More than 125 businesses torches and looted. 190 residents waiting for affordable housing are now without that option thanks to arsonists parading as social justice warriors. All those jobs lost. Three different Target stores looted. Numerous smaller stores, some owned and run by people of color, destroyed. And all those jobs gone for the time being or maybe forever. After being torched and looted twice, CVS didn't rebuild in Ferguson. Neither did the hairdresser who worked for years to build her clientele. The same thing will happen in Minneapolis and all they need is celebrities like you throwing gasoline on the fire.
Before you blame Trump, remember that Minneapolis is run by Democrats.
The governor of Minnesota is a Democrat
Keith Ellison, the AG of Minnesota, is both Muslim and a Democrat.
Amy Klobuchar, who had been a prosecutor in Minnesota is a Democrat. And as a prosecutor she avoided going after police behaving badly.
Why would she do that? Why would they all do that?
I'll tell you why. Because UNION votes matter more than BLACK votes. Minnesota is a UNION stronghold. Their teachers, firefighters, public workers and COPS are all card carrying union members. Klobuchar, the Minneapolis mayor and the governor all belong to the most far Left version of the Democrat party and they embrace organizing as a means to achieve socialism. You may think you like socialism and even be promoting it as an alternative, but you haven't endured real socialism yet. Real socialism will tell you what to say, what to sing, what to do and can take it all away in a heartbeat if you don't conform. Cardi B, I'm not a fan. I know you like to parade around as some sort of limit breaking rebel but the fact is you are more a product of consumerism than anyone and every thing you promote says this. When the smoke clears, maybe you should have a long talk with the residents who didn't riot-the ones whose lives were immeasurably changed by a couple of thousand hedonists on the take. Trump didn't do this-Democrats did. Maybe it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The party's over.
Before you blame Trump, remember that Minneapolis is run by Democrats.
The governor of Minnesota is a Democrat
Keith Ellison, the AG of Minnesota, is both Muslim and a Democrat.
Amy Klobuchar, who had been a prosecutor in Minnesota is a Democrat. And as a prosecutor she avoided going after police behaving badly.
Why would she do that? Why would they all do that?
I'll tell you why. Because UNION votes matter more than BLACK votes. Minnesota is a UNION stronghold. Their teachers, firefighters, public workers and COPS are all card carrying union members. Klobuchar, the Minneapolis mayor and the governor all belong to the most far Left version of the Democrat party and they embrace organizing as a means to achieve socialism. You may think you like socialism and even be promoting it as an alternative, but you haven't endured real socialism yet. Real socialism will tell you what to say, what to sing, what to do and can take it all away in a heartbeat if you don't conform. Cardi B, I'm not a fan. I know you like to parade around as some sort of limit breaking rebel but the fact is you are more a product of consumerism than anyone and every thing you promote says this. When the smoke clears, maybe you should have a long talk with the residents who didn't riot-the ones whose lives were immeasurably changed by a couple of thousand hedonists on the take. Trump didn't do this-Democrats did. Maybe it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The party's over.
Schools & Society
I think this discussion gets into the role of schools in society. It used to be that a public school offered academics and that was it. You went to school, you learned a modicum of reading, writing, history, science and math and graduated, usually around 16 years old, to move into the military, working at the family business or, if you were especially intelligent and financially able, to a profession such as law or medicine.
Now schools function not just as education entities, but as mechanisms for social change. In some ways that is a good thing. Integration was certainly way overdue and providing adequate education for the physicially disabled was essential, especially after the polio outbreaks of the 1950's. But as with all things, once power is given you cannot take it back.
We are seeing the third or fourth generation of students who have be indoctrinated into the concept of insured outcomes. That's important because it is not reasonable to expect all people will achieve the same levels of knowledge, ability or success. Yet this is the dogma of education now and is becoming the accepted norm for life in general. Unfortunately this is just not the case.
"You are not promised tomorrow" they say and that is true. You can be the most gifted musician, be in the youth orchestra, go to Julliard, be admitted to the symphony and still get hit by a truck while crossing the street without looking. Right now in the media, the concepts of public health being put forth by clinicians working with data is being pushed as the norm and it is not the norm. Any practicing physician can tell you there are going to be those patients who will die no matter what they do. To expect "all viruses" to go away is not just unrealistic, it's delusional. But for those who believe in insured outcomes, they would rather huddle in their homes for God knows how long rather than risk the less than 2% chance of death from the disease-and that number may be high.
I do think this episode is a cultural bending event. By that I mean the accepted current norms, which were largely based on a rental culture that lives in massive urban cores is being upended. Already the prices are dropping on urban studios and gentrified inner city houses. Young couples are becoming aware that raising a family might be easier in the less chic suburbs. Those folks who thought they were being somehow virtuous by taking up less space in an upscale urban apartment now wonder if they might feel more at home and secure in a suburb or exurb-all of which is contrary to what urban planners and futurists have been pushing for the last ten years.
I think some interesting things will happen as the result of this pandemic. I think families will be closer. I think more young kids will be educated at home until secondary school. I think the school classes that do form will be smaller out of public health necessity. I think more people will work at home at least part time. I think many Americans will be less willing to travel outside the country.
Now schools function not just as education entities, but as mechanisms for social change. In some ways that is a good thing. Integration was certainly way overdue and providing adequate education for the physicially disabled was essential, especially after the polio outbreaks of the 1950's. But as with all things, once power is given you cannot take it back.
We are seeing the third or fourth generation of students who have be indoctrinated into the concept of insured outcomes. That's important because it is not reasonable to expect all people will achieve the same levels of knowledge, ability or success. Yet this is the dogma of education now and is becoming the accepted norm for life in general. Unfortunately this is just not the case.
"You are not promised tomorrow" they say and that is true. You can be the most gifted musician, be in the youth orchestra, go to Julliard, be admitted to the symphony and still get hit by a truck while crossing the street without looking. Right now in the media, the concepts of public health being put forth by clinicians working with data is being pushed as the norm and it is not the norm. Any practicing physician can tell you there are going to be those patients who will die no matter what they do. To expect "all viruses" to go away is not just unrealistic, it's delusional. But for those who believe in insured outcomes, they would rather huddle in their homes for God knows how long rather than risk the less than 2% chance of death from the disease-and that number may be high.
I do think this episode is a cultural bending event. By that I mean the accepted current norms, which were largely based on a rental culture that lives in massive urban cores is being upended. Already the prices are dropping on urban studios and gentrified inner city houses. Young couples are becoming aware that raising a family might be easier in the less chic suburbs. Those folks who thought they were being somehow virtuous by taking up less space in an upscale urban apartment now wonder if they might feel more at home and secure in a suburb or exurb-all of which is contrary to what urban planners and futurists have been pushing for the last ten years.
I think some interesting things will happen as the result of this pandemic. I think families will be closer. I think more young kids will be educated at home until secondary school. I think the school classes that do form will be smaller out of public health necessity. I think more people will work at home at least part time. I think many Americans will be less willing to travel outside the country.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
GIGO the MSM and the Economy
GIGO is an acronym that stands for "Garbage In, Garbage Out." It's a computing term referencing how computer outcomes can be incorrect based on bad data. This is something that has been known since the early days of computing and continues to haunt us today. Bad data, or data that has been cherrypicked to provide a specific outcome, is rife in surveys, polling and even massive models for situations such as weather, climate and in this case, the manipulation of an entire massive economy.
We should refer to computer models as tools and examples but not as solid references for the entire spectrum of human behavior.
Liberals, by and large, want to control outcomes. Every aspect of liberal dogma references props they install on flawed core samples. They want "everyone" (and by that they mean loyalists) to be successful no matter what basic skills they possess or what personal choices the individuals have made to enhance or ignore those skills. It began with education where some students were more equal than others to the point of even Ivy League schools assuming test scores not in evidence in order to give the perception that "all" can succeed. While rewarding an aspiring student is not evil, one wonders if that student would have been better served by knowing had they worked harder, paid attention or even showed up for class they would have achieved more. Generations of Americans used to be raised on philosophies found in the fables of "The Little Red Hen" or "The Ant and the Grasshopper" but now are informed they are entitled to succeed by their mere presence. This is the result of trying to insure outcomes.
Moving beyond that into the society at large, we have some populations who pick and choose whether to obey laws. On a small scale it's a situation of failure to yield right of way when driving, but that can explode into road rage in individuals who do not keep their egos in check. When we have liberals on the bench dismissing serious felons out of an overabundance of kindness, it serves no one well. It's one thing to release someone who is truly repentant and no danger to society. It's quite another to do mass releases based on a false premise such as age, gender or race. We have judges, again largely liberal judges, seeking to release people to give the perception of favoritism, again inclined to benefit them politically rather than helping society at large at all.
In addition to the insistence of assuring positive outcomes no matter what, we have a media that for all intents and purposes is taking sides. While many subscribe this to political favoritism it is in reality something far more basic-media survival. The idiom "If it bleeds, it leads" has been applied to and by journalists,, reporters, editors and anchors for as long as "news" as an entity has existed. Today it takes the form of ratings or "clicks" depending on the source. To get eyes on their product, outlets rely on increasingly strident and sometimes even false information to gather favor. When you add to this the narrowing of the news pipeline via attrition of newspapers and their reporters at the local and regional level, you start to recognize how the media as an industry can be easily manipulated using the placement of well placed anonymous sources, whistleblowers or informants. What Woodward and Bernstein glorified as "Deepthroat" has now become an excuse for anyone with an axe to grind to "find" a stooge to create a story. Mark Twain, no slouch when it came to ascerbic observations, said "A lie will travel around the world, while the truth is still lacing up its boots" Nowhere do we see that more openly than in the current 24/7 news cycle.
So we have bad computer models, a media craving clicks and a population that doesn't feel it should have to work very hard in order to maintain what other generations have died for. Let that comment sink in a minute. We've seen the results of allowing the media to stampede the herd of largely uninformed and sometimes politically motivated populations into action. I remember in 1974, books like "The Late Great Planet Earth" promised overpopulation would drive us to famine and global poverty. We were also told the next great Ice Age was upon us. We endured Odd-Even gas lines, violence and hyperbole based on little more than bad theories and idle rumors. Nothing has changed. This time we see politicians so fearful of the media that they bend the limits of expectation to destroy the largest economy in the world.
Computer models are made by humans. That means human bias, for better or worse, is the soul of any computer model. Computer models forecast the weather. Do you really believe The Farmers' Almanac when planning a summer outdoor wedding? It's based on past events. Guess what, so is every single weather forecast from local news to NOAA. On a larger scale the entire theory of Climate Change is based on a few shaky models that may or may not feature chosen data over all data in order to extort grant money from energy producers. Do you really think it's an accident Al Gore became rich by pushing a heavily flawed narrative? Would he have been so blindly believed if he was not a former vice president of the United States? Celebrity confers assumed status, deserved or not. And by the way, for those still waving the flags on environmental needs, if the planet was in such dire states, why would you choose to exempt the worlds more egregious polluters, China and India? So models are only as good as their data and data can be edited to insure outcomes.
Apply that last sentence to polling and surveys. Early in my career I worked for an in-house advertising agency. We did polling for product design. Much of that polling was more like an eye exam than a true free choice by the consumer.
"A or B? "
"This or that?"
It's very seldom an open ended question with a full and nuanced answer.
This is why students prefer multiple choice tests to essays. It doesn't require the student to actively engage with the outcome of their decision.
Very few polls offer enough diversity of answers or sampling to be truly representative of a nation of 330,000,000. Instead much of what we experience is decided by very small groups often picked because of their anticipated responses rather than a true desire to see what the opinions of the nation at large may be. This is true in what you see on TV, in movies, in every store and business. This is also why those individuals who don't conform to opinions expected from a group are so often vilified. Consider how the media has treated Supreme Court Justice Thomas as opposed to Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor. Which justice swerved the most from societal projections?
Looking at the current situation this nation and its leadership were originally faced with computer models based on questionable data that projected the possibility of 1.2 million Americans dying due to COVID19 (aka Wuhan Virus). The US Center for Disease Control was rebuffed by the Chinese Communist government. Indeed it was said that on January 1, 2020, all samples and data were to be destroyed. Without accurate data, all models became suspect. CDC being an overly cautious organization based in government funding and immune to the vagaries of market change, chose to support the worst case scenario. You can see this in a story from The Hill dated March 13, 2020. The media, sensing a story that would insure their jobs ran with this story not bothering to look at other models. The government, as much subject to the hyperbole of the press as the public, followed suit and shut down the nation's economy while at the same time marshalling massive economic bills and moving truly and equally massive functions to cities projecting they would need them. Here are the results of these actions:
Congress' Attending Physician Predicts 150,000,000 Will Be Infected
Washintgon's Hospital Dismantled Without a Single Patient
Job Losses Could Be 47 Million
So to clarify, the media and politicians have allowed a situation to become economically unbalanced to the point of unfeasibility because they want to insure outcomes. As we move through this season, we are seeing power usurped and wielded in some strange and suppressive ways. A father is arrested for playing tee-ball with his six year old in a deserted park. A man is chased for running on a isolated beach. Neighbors are turning in neighbors for coughing while in their house next door. Is it any wonder that the Founders so feared allowing politicians to have unchecked power over people? How many of the inalienable rights outlined in the Bill of Rights have been suspended? Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech even the freedom to move freely about the country are being constrained by political overreach spurred on by polling (remember what I said about polls...) stampeding them to take action. Please note, while the COVID19 epidemic is a serious outbreak, especially for targeted groups it is not the end all be all dystopian outbreak of movie fame.
Comparitive Graph of Human Pandemics over History
Now we're starting to see lower projected outcomes which the agencies and clinical researchers want to make the population believe is due to washing our hands, social distancing and covering our faces. I've already posted one video of a doctor extensively explain everything about COVID19 from the way you catch it (hand to face) and why washing hands goes much further than wearing a mask.
Doctor Explains COVID19 to his Family (long)
Knowing those facts, better hygiene certainly makes sense. I'm kind of wondering why we are telling adults they need to wash their hands, but enjoying clean shopping carts and having stores clean, newly stocked and nicely organized. This should be on the list of Team Goals to keep after this scare is over. What doesn't make sense is shutting down the economy to the tune of ten million job losses. I don't see how we're meeting any less when the parks are full and the few stores that are open are similarly packed, especially in the early morning when they are stocked with toilet paper. Perhaps we should recommend that certain susceptible groups stay home rather than literally destroying small businesses like Godzilla on meth.
I'm not unsympathetic. My own Mom went into the hospital for heart related issues on the last day of February. From there she was moved to a rehab facility literally on the day that our own local tin-plated icon Judge Jenkins, decided that seniors could not be moved. I have a problem with this-first of all, his assumption that ALL families have homes that could accommodate their senior relatives. My home can't handle my Mom's need for her walker or accessibility to the shower. So she's now had to stay a month past the time her insurance, Humana, wants her to stay because she can't return back to her Dallas county apartment for which she pays $2800 a month. This is unreasonable seizure of goods-because we can't even go in to retrieve her furniture and belongings. It's also virtual imprisonment because any residents who leave cannot return. They are trapped and this is wrong because these are not children, they are ADULTS. For a county judge to decide FOR SENIORS what they may and may not do, where they may and may not go is a major breech of the social contract insured by the Bill of Rights.
Other issues are now rising. The rights to assembly, freedom of worship, free access, freedom of speech and more are now on the chopping block. Under the guise of "Protecting the Public" Democrats in positions of power are attempting to "Insure Outcomes". We've already discussed how it is medically impossible to insure outcomes. We've already discussed how models can be manipulated by providing bad or selected data to create a chosen result. We've seen how the media, under the mask of "Informing The Public" is whipping up fear to a frenzied level creating situations where even an elderly frail women who stumbles into someone else's safe space can be shoved and killed with impunity. Doubt me? Here's the story: First COVID19 Murder
Millions of workers are now in economic, social and emotional pressure. Such conditions lead groups to easily follow whatever information-false or true-that comes across to them. Under such conditions abuse of all kinds can arise. With first responders falling ill due to increased contact, they will be less likely to respond when called. This creates a social environment where someone benefits. Always look for who is benefiting from everyone's bad circumstances. Meanwhile let's sum up.
Here's what we were told last week regarding COVID19 deaths: Statistics
Notice that the death rate, a somber number, is about 39 PER MILLION. That means right now our rate is about 12,753 estimated. Our actual number of deaths from COVID19 so far? According to WHO-the same folks who said until January 14 that there was no human to human transmission: 20K in the US. Other outlets are saying that in some states any death that might be marginally linked to similar issues which could include Congestive Heart Failure, Emphysema, Asthma, Diabetes and more could be included in those statistics. I hate to cast doubt on the doctors who seem to have been given carte blanche to call the shots, but what if those people died of the primary cause and COVID was merely present with few of the symptoms. There's a very real chance many of us had this virus earlier. If you go online there are plenty of folks who had some strange upper respiratory episode back in November but thought it was a cold and even after seeking medical help, went back to their lives without the enforce sequestration we're living in now.
By the way, why is it on the CDC website there's no mortality numbers? Or there's lots of percentages of the number of confirmed cases, but that is worded to sound like far more of the population at large than is really represented. If you want an example of what I consider to be doublespeak by the CDC, Read This
Now here's The WHO website that already says more than it's own estimates which means they aren't even working with real numbers. But here's the bottom line, even with the estimated 60,000 deaths we may ultimately see, the impact on the total population is less than one one hundredth of a percent
impact on the entire population of the US. Most people can't conceive of how little a chance it is. And yet the news media will lead headlines like "The US today has more cases than any nation in the world." First of all, we don't know that since the Chinese Communist government isn't exactly giving us fully verifiable data. Remember, these are the same folks who LIED ABOUT CORONA VIRUS FOR MONTHS. And remember, there's no promise we won't see this type of virus or the same virus again. Just as with all things, tomorrow is not guaranteed. That being said, at some point we do have to think about tomorrow and decide to stop hiding in fear. And we absolutely need to remind politicians that they are public SERVANTS, not royalty. In addition, we need to remove ourselves from toxic media that seems entirely more interested in their own survival over our own.
We should refer to computer models as tools and examples but not as solid references for the entire spectrum of human behavior.
Liberals, by and large, want to control outcomes. Every aspect of liberal dogma references props they install on flawed core samples. They want "everyone" (and by that they mean loyalists) to be successful no matter what basic skills they possess or what personal choices the individuals have made to enhance or ignore those skills. It began with education where some students were more equal than others to the point of even Ivy League schools assuming test scores not in evidence in order to give the perception that "all" can succeed. While rewarding an aspiring student is not evil, one wonders if that student would have been better served by knowing had they worked harder, paid attention or even showed up for class they would have achieved more. Generations of Americans used to be raised on philosophies found in the fables of "The Little Red Hen" or "The Ant and the Grasshopper" but now are informed they are entitled to succeed by their mere presence. This is the result of trying to insure outcomes.
Moving beyond that into the society at large, we have some populations who pick and choose whether to obey laws. On a small scale it's a situation of failure to yield right of way when driving, but that can explode into road rage in individuals who do not keep their egos in check. When we have liberals on the bench dismissing serious felons out of an overabundance of kindness, it serves no one well. It's one thing to release someone who is truly repentant and no danger to society. It's quite another to do mass releases based on a false premise such as age, gender or race. We have judges, again largely liberal judges, seeking to release people to give the perception of favoritism, again inclined to benefit them politically rather than helping society at large at all.
In addition to the insistence of assuring positive outcomes no matter what, we have a media that for all intents and purposes is taking sides. While many subscribe this to political favoritism it is in reality something far more basic-media survival. The idiom "If it bleeds, it leads" has been applied to and by journalists,, reporters, editors and anchors for as long as "news" as an entity has existed. Today it takes the form of ratings or "clicks" depending on the source. To get eyes on their product, outlets rely on increasingly strident and sometimes even false information to gather favor. When you add to this the narrowing of the news pipeline via attrition of newspapers and their reporters at the local and regional level, you start to recognize how the media as an industry can be easily manipulated using the placement of well placed anonymous sources, whistleblowers or informants. What Woodward and Bernstein glorified as "Deepthroat" has now become an excuse for anyone with an axe to grind to "find" a stooge to create a story. Mark Twain, no slouch when it came to ascerbic observations, said "A lie will travel around the world, while the truth is still lacing up its boots" Nowhere do we see that more openly than in the current 24/7 news cycle.
So we have bad computer models, a media craving clicks and a population that doesn't feel it should have to work very hard in order to maintain what other generations have died for. Let that comment sink in a minute. We've seen the results of allowing the media to stampede the herd of largely uninformed and sometimes politically motivated populations into action. I remember in 1974, books like "The Late Great Planet Earth" promised overpopulation would drive us to famine and global poverty. We were also told the next great Ice Age was upon us. We endured Odd-Even gas lines, violence and hyperbole based on little more than bad theories and idle rumors. Nothing has changed. This time we see politicians so fearful of the media that they bend the limits of expectation to destroy the largest economy in the world.
Computer models are made by humans. That means human bias, for better or worse, is the soul of any computer model. Computer models forecast the weather. Do you really believe The Farmers' Almanac when planning a summer outdoor wedding? It's based on past events. Guess what, so is every single weather forecast from local news to NOAA. On a larger scale the entire theory of Climate Change is based on a few shaky models that may or may not feature chosen data over all data in order to extort grant money from energy producers. Do you really think it's an accident Al Gore became rich by pushing a heavily flawed narrative? Would he have been so blindly believed if he was not a former vice president of the United States? Celebrity confers assumed status, deserved or not. And by the way, for those still waving the flags on environmental needs, if the planet was in such dire states, why would you choose to exempt the worlds more egregious polluters, China and India? So models are only as good as their data and data can be edited to insure outcomes.
Apply that last sentence to polling and surveys. Early in my career I worked for an in-house advertising agency. We did polling for product design. Much of that polling was more like an eye exam than a true free choice by the consumer.
"A or B? "
"This or that?"
It's very seldom an open ended question with a full and nuanced answer.
This is why students prefer multiple choice tests to essays. It doesn't require the student to actively engage with the outcome of their decision.
Very few polls offer enough diversity of answers or sampling to be truly representative of a nation of 330,000,000. Instead much of what we experience is decided by very small groups often picked because of their anticipated responses rather than a true desire to see what the opinions of the nation at large may be. This is true in what you see on TV, in movies, in every store and business. This is also why those individuals who don't conform to opinions expected from a group are so often vilified. Consider how the media has treated Supreme Court Justice Thomas as opposed to Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor. Which justice swerved the most from societal projections?
Looking at the current situation this nation and its leadership were originally faced with computer models based on questionable data that projected the possibility of 1.2 million Americans dying due to COVID19 (aka Wuhan Virus). The US Center for Disease Control was rebuffed by the Chinese Communist government. Indeed it was said that on January 1, 2020, all samples and data were to be destroyed. Without accurate data, all models became suspect. CDC being an overly cautious organization based in government funding and immune to the vagaries of market change, chose to support the worst case scenario. You can see this in a story from The Hill dated March 13, 2020. The media, sensing a story that would insure their jobs ran with this story not bothering to look at other models. The government, as much subject to the hyperbole of the press as the public, followed suit and shut down the nation's economy while at the same time marshalling massive economic bills and moving truly and equally massive functions to cities projecting they would need them. Here are the results of these actions:
Congress' Attending Physician Predicts 150,000,000 Will Be Infected
Washintgon's Hospital Dismantled Without a Single Patient
Job Losses Could Be 47 Million
So to clarify, the media and politicians have allowed a situation to become economically unbalanced to the point of unfeasibility because they want to insure outcomes. As we move through this season, we are seeing power usurped and wielded in some strange and suppressive ways. A father is arrested for playing tee-ball with his six year old in a deserted park. A man is chased for running on a isolated beach. Neighbors are turning in neighbors for coughing while in their house next door. Is it any wonder that the Founders so feared allowing politicians to have unchecked power over people? How many of the inalienable rights outlined in the Bill of Rights have been suspended? Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech even the freedom to move freely about the country are being constrained by political overreach spurred on by polling (remember what I said about polls...) stampeding them to take action. Please note, while the COVID19 epidemic is a serious outbreak, especially for targeted groups it is not the end all be all dystopian outbreak of movie fame.
Comparitive Graph of Human Pandemics over History
Now we're starting to see lower projected outcomes which the agencies and clinical researchers want to make the population believe is due to washing our hands, social distancing and covering our faces. I've already posted one video of a doctor extensively explain everything about COVID19 from the way you catch it (hand to face) and why washing hands goes much further than wearing a mask.
Doctor Explains COVID19 to his Family (long)
Knowing those facts, better hygiene certainly makes sense. I'm kind of wondering why we are telling adults they need to wash their hands, but enjoying clean shopping carts and having stores clean, newly stocked and nicely organized. This should be on the list of Team Goals to keep after this scare is over. What doesn't make sense is shutting down the economy to the tune of ten million job losses. I don't see how we're meeting any less when the parks are full and the few stores that are open are similarly packed, especially in the early morning when they are stocked with toilet paper. Perhaps we should recommend that certain susceptible groups stay home rather than literally destroying small businesses like Godzilla on meth.
I'm not unsympathetic. My own Mom went into the hospital for heart related issues on the last day of February. From there she was moved to a rehab facility literally on the day that our own local tin-plated icon Judge Jenkins, decided that seniors could not be moved. I have a problem with this-first of all, his assumption that ALL families have homes that could accommodate their senior relatives. My home can't handle my Mom's need for her walker or accessibility to the shower. So she's now had to stay a month past the time her insurance, Humana, wants her to stay because she can't return back to her Dallas county apartment for which she pays $2800 a month. This is unreasonable seizure of goods-because we can't even go in to retrieve her furniture and belongings. It's also virtual imprisonment because any residents who leave cannot return. They are trapped and this is wrong because these are not children, they are ADULTS. For a county judge to decide FOR SENIORS what they may and may not do, where they may and may not go is a major breech of the social contract insured by the Bill of Rights.
Other issues are now rising. The rights to assembly, freedom of worship, free access, freedom of speech and more are now on the chopping block. Under the guise of "Protecting the Public" Democrats in positions of power are attempting to "Insure Outcomes". We've already discussed how it is medically impossible to insure outcomes. We've already discussed how models can be manipulated by providing bad or selected data to create a chosen result. We've seen how the media, under the mask of "Informing The Public" is whipping up fear to a frenzied level creating situations where even an elderly frail women who stumbles into someone else's safe space can be shoved and killed with impunity. Doubt me? Here's the story: First COVID19 Murder
Millions of workers are now in economic, social and emotional pressure. Such conditions lead groups to easily follow whatever information-false or true-that comes across to them. Under such conditions abuse of all kinds can arise. With first responders falling ill due to increased contact, they will be less likely to respond when called. This creates a social environment where someone benefits. Always look for who is benefiting from everyone's bad circumstances. Meanwhile let's sum up.
Here's what we were told last week regarding COVID19 deaths: Statistics
By the way, why is it on the CDC website there's no mortality numbers? Or there's lots of percentages of the number of confirmed cases, but that is worded to sound like far more of the population at large than is really represented. If you want an example of what I consider to be doublespeak by the CDC, Read This
Now here's The WHO website that already says more than it's own estimates which means they aren't even working with real numbers. But here's the bottom line, even with the estimated 60,000 deaths we may ultimately see, the impact on the total population is less than one one hundredth of a percent
impact on the entire population of the US. Most people can't conceive of how little a chance it is. And yet the news media will lead headlines like "The US today has more cases than any nation in the world." First of all, we don't know that since the Chinese Communist government isn't exactly giving us fully verifiable data. Remember, these are the same folks who LIED ABOUT CORONA VIRUS FOR MONTHS. And remember, there's no promise we won't see this type of virus or the same virus again. Just as with all things, tomorrow is not guaranteed. That being said, at some point we do have to think about tomorrow and decide to stop hiding in fear. And we absolutely need to remind politicians that they are public SERVANTS, not royalty. In addition, we need to remove ourselves from toxic media that seems entirely more interested in their own survival over our own.
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Silver Linings: Thoughts on CoronaVirus, Stay At Home Quarantine and Culture
I've basically been in the same "stay at home" mode since February 28th. That was the day I took my Mom to the ER with breathing issues. Of course, even though the nation was not on alert, COVID-19/Wuhan Virus/CoronaVirus/Chinese Virus was on the radar and was what I feared, since Mom lives in a senior independent living apartment community. But that wasn't the cause-along with diabetes and leukemia, Mom has Congestive Heart Failure. As a result, fluid was pooling in her lungs. I spent two weeks traipsing to the hospital twice a day to monitor progress. She pulled through and on March 11 was moved to a rehab center. Then the hammer dropped. That day her rehab went on lockdown in Collin County. Mom's apartment complex also went on lockdown meaning she could not reenter, even though she's paying the exorbitant rent these facilities demand and was coming from another center due to lockdown. Humana, her insurance, tried to literally shove her out the door over the protests of doctors and physical therapists. Luckily we have just enough to last until the end of April.
I guess you can call that a silver lining, although I would call a pox on Humana leadership that during this crisis seem to have no scope for how people's hands are tied by the legal ramifications of lockdowns and quarantines.Some of the senior nursing homes are seeing clusters of COVID-19 erupt. So far, where Mom is living is safe and she is safe, although bored out of her mind. The staff there is very kind and on strict order where they can't go anywhere even on their own time. I truly appreciate people who are making enormous sacrifices for the welfare of others. When I'm allowed I will make this up to them. So Mom's safety is a silver lining.
All this could, and did, depress me. I miss my kids. I miss going out with friends. I miss shopping at the store. But on the other hand, I'm out walking twice a day with my dog and saying hello to people I don't know-an unusual behavior in most urban settings. The constant hum of rush hour traffic has dulled where I can hear birds sing in the morning. It makes me feel like Cinderella. The air is fresher and with the abundant rain, the yards and parks are lush with new growth. Since the city has furloughed many workers in parks, these places will begin to grow wild, providing habitats for all kinds of animals and birds in time.
I looked at my bank account and found we spent a thousand dollars LESS staying home. We're not gadabouts, but that number stunned me. I'm cooking and baking more. I'm more careful to avoid waste. I'm having to be very creative because I never know what will be depleted in the store. One day there's no cheese. The next there's no eggs. There's always a lack of frozen food and the fresh produce is come and go. In spite of this we've managed to have enchiladas, steak, hamburgers and shrimp creole from food I stored in the freezer. The silver lining beyond having food to eat is that my husband can never ever again gripe about me buying and storing too much food.
On a larger scale I'm wonder what work at home and homeschooling are doing for and to our culture. I believe that prior to this situation, many Americans were lacking in compassion and empathy for others. Humans had been reduced by modern society to pixels on a screen. The enforced family togetherness is limiting the outside influence of peers to teens. This in turn may change behavior as the outrageous acting out that gets attention in most public schools only gets a shrug or a glare when Mom or Dad are working right across the table from you. I had to laugh when I saw the news stories with parents complaining the lessons they were expected to present were "too hard" or that their children were goofing off and not completing work. Not so easy, is it parents? A million teachers just laughed.
Perhaps from this parents will learn how to establish some discipline, stop blaming teachers for their kids' failures and get more kids off of medications they don't need once structure is applied. That would be a big silver lining. Before you attack, my youngest son is ADHD and was on Ritalin for a long time. When he was 18 he demanded to stop. He hated the way it made him feel. He's managed to become successful in sales. Imagine the 4, 5, and 6 years old enduring these feelings and having no words to describe what is happening to their brains and bodies.Wouldn't having fewer kids on medications be a silver lining?
I wonder if all the cities that offered tax abatements to entities like Amazon and IKEA will suddenly find they don't need all that subsidized office space. My daughter works for a Very Big Bank in their fraud division. She's been working at home since early February. She does her job well, she's not as tired because she doesn't have a 45 minute commute each way She does miss her friends and performing, but for fun she's turned her garage into a dance studio and is teaching online dances from musicals she's choreographed. My daughter in law is also working at home five days a week, actually logging overtime since her large global company lost an entire call center in American Samoa. I believe that just like homeschooling, there are some who will be reluctant to return to their office cubicles where, let's be honest here, there's so much wasted time. Getting to work at home and having it become more common is definitely a silver lining.
For those in service oriented jobs, being there is a necessity. My two sons each have jobs that require their presence. One works in automotive, the other in bikes. Both are supposed to be working service only, but my youngest son's retail store is getting hammered by people insisting they are entitled to come in and buy stuff. My youngest used to be a bouncer and at six foot four inches and 240 lbs, is built like a linebacker, it's not a good idea to argue with him. He's trying to keep his skeleton staff safe by limiting it to five in the store. I don't know why people have to be belligerent. That they have jobs, even with reduced hours, is a blessing.
On a national scale, I wonder if people will start paying more attention to what they see as opposed to what other people are telling them. I don't see how anyone could watch the task force daily and then believe what is being spewed in the media. I am also wondering if people will start paying attention to secondary stories. I think the stories on the misuse of FISA is huge and that's absolutely being buried by all the CoronaVirus coverage. The story is important because it demonstrates that under the Obama administration DOJ, the FBI was indulging in absolutely illegal, unconstitutional behavior. Likewise the emerging insider trading scandals related to the congressional COVID-19 closed door meeting is another example of corruption that needs to come forward. I think all those participating should be prosecuted including Nancy Pelosi, who right after the hearings bought five million in Amazon stock. That kind of behavior being ousted from Congress would be a silver lining indeed.
In the end, this is all going to come down to attitude. I hope I don't get this virus. There's no real assurance that I won't, but likewise there's no way to know that I haven't already had it and gotten better. I have allergies all the time. Fall and Spring are major allergy triggers for me. I sneeze and cough pretty much all year round. I feel like I need a shirt with a disclaimer "Not Positive, But Allergic" for going to the store. That being said, I'm looking at the numbers and while not great, they aren't as bad as some are claiming. I'm reading about Sweden and Denmark where there are allowing herd immunity to rule. I'm curious if protocols established will work and if some, perhaps even many, of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually only a minor cause for much larger issues that were ignored for the sake of media headlines. Moving the American public away from blind allegiance to ANY media source and returning them to a renewed vigilance on their own constitutional rights. And that would be a big shiny silver lining right there.
I guess you can call that a silver lining, although I would call a pox on Humana leadership that during this crisis seem to have no scope for how people's hands are tied by the legal ramifications of lockdowns and quarantines.Some of the senior nursing homes are seeing clusters of COVID-19 erupt. So far, where Mom is living is safe and she is safe, although bored out of her mind. The staff there is very kind and on strict order where they can't go anywhere even on their own time. I truly appreciate people who are making enormous sacrifices for the welfare of others. When I'm allowed I will make this up to them. So Mom's safety is a silver lining.
All this could, and did, depress me. I miss my kids. I miss going out with friends. I miss shopping at the store. But on the other hand, I'm out walking twice a day with my dog and saying hello to people I don't know-an unusual behavior in most urban settings. The constant hum of rush hour traffic has dulled where I can hear birds sing in the morning. It makes me feel like Cinderella. The air is fresher and with the abundant rain, the yards and parks are lush with new growth. Since the city has furloughed many workers in parks, these places will begin to grow wild, providing habitats for all kinds of animals and birds in time.
I looked at my bank account and found we spent a thousand dollars LESS staying home. We're not gadabouts, but that number stunned me. I'm cooking and baking more. I'm more careful to avoid waste. I'm having to be very creative because I never know what will be depleted in the store. One day there's no cheese. The next there's no eggs. There's always a lack of frozen food and the fresh produce is come and go. In spite of this we've managed to have enchiladas, steak, hamburgers and shrimp creole from food I stored in the freezer. The silver lining beyond having food to eat is that my husband can never ever again gripe about me buying and storing too much food.
On a larger scale I'm wonder what work at home and homeschooling are doing for and to our culture. I believe that prior to this situation, many Americans were lacking in compassion and empathy for others. Humans had been reduced by modern society to pixels on a screen. The enforced family togetherness is limiting the outside influence of peers to teens. This in turn may change behavior as the outrageous acting out that gets attention in most public schools only gets a shrug or a glare when Mom or Dad are working right across the table from you. I had to laugh when I saw the news stories with parents complaining the lessons they were expected to present were "too hard" or that their children were goofing off and not completing work. Not so easy, is it parents? A million teachers just laughed.
Perhaps from this parents will learn how to establish some discipline, stop blaming teachers for their kids' failures and get more kids off of medications they don't need once structure is applied. That would be a big silver lining. Before you attack, my youngest son is ADHD and was on Ritalin for a long time. When he was 18 he demanded to stop. He hated the way it made him feel. He's managed to become successful in sales. Imagine the 4, 5, and 6 years old enduring these feelings and having no words to describe what is happening to their brains and bodies.Wouldn't having fewer kids on medications be a silver lining?
I wonder if all the cities that offered tax abatements to entities like Amazon and IKEA will suddenly find they don't need all that subsidized office space. My daughter works for a Very Big Bank in their fraud division. She's been working at home since early February. She does her job well, she's not as tired because she doesn't have a 45 minute commute each way She does miss her friends and performing, but for fun she's turned her garage into a dance studio and is teaching online dances from musicals she's choreographed. My daughter in law is also working at home five days a week, actually logging overtime since her large global company lost an entire call center in American Samoa. I believe that just like homeschooling, there are some who will be reluctant to return to their office cubicles where, let's be honest here, there's so much wasted time. Getting to work at home and having it become more common is definitely a silver lining.
For those in service oriented jobs, being there is a necessity. My two sons each have jobs that require their presence. One works in automotive, the other in bikes. Both are supposed to be working service only, but my youngest son's retail store is getting hammered by people insisting they are entitled to come in and buy stuff. My youngest used to be a bouncer and at six foot four inches and 240 lbs, is built like a linebacker, it's not a good idea to argue with him. He's trying to keep his skeleton staff safe by limiting it to five in the store. I don't know why people have to be belligerent. That they have jobs, even with reduced hours, is a blessing.
On a national scale, I wonder if people will start paying more attention to what they see as opposed to what other people are telling them. I don't see how anyone could watch the task force daily and then believe what is being spewed in the media. I am also wondering if people will start paying attention to secondary stories. I think the stories on the misuse of FISA is huge and that's absolutely being buried by all the CoronaVirus coverage. The story is important because it demonstrates that under the Obama administration DOJ, the FBI was indulging in absolutely illegal, unconstitutional behavior. Likewise the emerging insider trading scandals related to the congressional COVID-19 closed door meeting is another example of corruption that needs to come forward. I think all those participating should be prosecuted including Nancy Pelosi, who right after the hearings bought five million in Amazon stock. That kind of behavior being ousted from Congress would be a silver lining indeed.
In the end, this is all going to come down to attitude. I hope I don't get this virus. There's no real assurance that I won't, but likewise there's no way to know that I haven't already had it and gotten better. I have allergies all the time. Fall and Spring are major allergy triggers for me. I sneeze and cough pretty much all year round. I feel like I need a shirt with a disclaimer "Not Positive, But Allergic" for going to the store. That being said, I'm looking at the numbers and while not great, they aren't as bad as some are claiming. I'm reading about Sweden and Denmark where there are allowing herd immunity to rule. I'm curious if protocols established will work and if some, perhaps even many, of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually only a minor cause for much larger issues that were ignored for the sake of media headlines. Moving the American public away from blind allegiance to ANY media source and returning them to a renewed vigilance on their own constitutional rights. And that would be a big shiny silver lining right there.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Puzzles and Pestilence
So boys and girls, here we are in the Age of Corona. And not the good kind you can drink with a nice Mexican dinner on the beach. Somehow a rogue virus escaped it's laboratory moorings and ran wild in the general population. If we are to believe the Chinese officials, this was all accidental. Then again, the Chinese have a cultural need to "save face" that predates the era of Mao.
I've been doing puzzles and reading mysteries since I was nine. Word puzzles are the best. Confusing mysteries, especially set in a specific place, are amazing because it's like visiting a location or time. I read mysteries set in Rome, mysteries set on the Navajo Rez, even mystery thrillers that reflect our worst fears from the headlines. Puzzles are fun to figure out. Mysteries are fun to anticipate. It's become a habit to look at situations and wonder "What if.....?"
Consider epidemics. Human history is full of them. The Black Death, The Spanish Flu, Polio, AIDS, Zika were surges of disease that ravaged different populations. I remember the Polio Epidemic of the late 1950's. As a very young child I remember lining up in the school gym of Dowling Elementary waiting to get my sugar cube in a paper condiment cup soaked with a vaccine engineered by Jonas Salk. The AIDS epidemic was frightening because it was a communicable disease that nobody wanted to really discuss. We've had disease promoted by poor hygiene, crowded populations and utter disregard for access to vaccinations. But this time is different.
The "Corona Virus" or COVID-19 if you prefer, appears to be an engineered virus. The prefix "novel" means it hasn't been identified prior to this outbreak. That doesn't mean it didn't exist, but it most likely didn't exist in a human accessed format. To look more closely we need to look at Wuhan. (and NO it is not "racist" to call this the Wuhan virus any more than it was racist to call the Spanish Flu by that name...). Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China has been a huge research entity for awhile now. Maybe it's just a coincidence that COVID-19 manifested in that region, but since the 1960's many of our flu bugs seem to originate there. The way epidomologists look at mass infections of populations is to use timelines and maps. Here are a few examples:
Real time chart of COVID-19 outbreak (made by a 17 year old! If you go there, give him some props)
I'm putting in some graphics mainly to get people to focus. But you should go to the website linked HERE and investigate for yourself.
So here's your outbreak. Here's the path of the pathogens as it were (Biology pun, I love gallows humor). We can see it started in China, with the "official" date of 12/24/2019 which is most likely a month later than it was really first introduced into the human petri dish of Chinese culture. From there, for awhile, the second largest outbreak was in Iran. This is dark humor indeed since they claim to have nothing to do with the Chinese officially. The existence of the virus in Iran proves otherwise. From there the virus moves to Italy which is now second in terms of total cases and deaths. Part of this is due to the aging population in Italy, but it also says a great deal about crowded conditions and open borders. Both play a role in this morality play.
From there, the third largest cluster is in Washington state. This is not an accident. While folks rant about the lack of security on our southern border, people from all over the world literally walk across from Canada, many of them in Washington state. Let's not forget that Washington is a "Sanctuary State" where people are discouraged from asking questions or making observations about the living conditions of others. Even now, I am willing to bet that the tolerant folks in Seattle are loathe to ask someone who is sitting on the bus by them coughing if they have COVID-19. This idea that you should not defend yourself from something or someone who could be a threat is a very dangerous idea. But that is the nature of what has happened in the culture of the Left Coast.
The first and worst outbreak was in a senior rest home. If I was an investigator, I would look at workers who were dealing with multiple patients. This would point to nursing staff, but even more to food handlers and service workers. If I was a profiler I would say this was a member of the food services staff who was ill or living with someone who was ill. It is likely they don't speak English and were fearful of being turned over to ICE. What's scarier, that same person may be working at multiple facilities. Remember food services means not just rest homes, but also hospitals, schools, public buildings. Look up the history of Typhoid Mary if you want a similar scenario in real life.
As a result, Americans who are currently raised to believe they can control outcomes are panic buying things like bleach, toilet paper and bottled water. God knows I'd rather face the apocalypse with a good bottle of Bourbon and a cheeseburger, but I digress. We have a generation that doesn't know how to handle adversity AT ALL. They seek internet solutions and blame politicians when none of that has any bearing on when and where the virus landed. All I can say is thank God the "Greatest Generation" had enough balls to endure the deprivation of the Great Depression and the mobilization of WWII because I'm not sure the current crop of young people could do it. Sometimes you have to learn how to respond in spite of your fears. When I think of the college kids with safe rooms because they can't endure the words of a conservative speaker or the people who melt down because they don't like who gets elected, I wonder if some massive psy-op program has removed maturity from the population.
Now we get to the total conjecture part of my column.
IF I was an evil villain intent on destroying Western Civilization, how would I do it?
The Chinese are reliant on American and European markets for their newfound wealth. They would not knowingly destroy it. But with wealth, also comes envy. There are many Chinese millionaires now. There are also many underpaid tech workers who are more interested in acquiring wealth than moral and ethical concerns. These folks are probably not particularly knowledgable about the nature of research in Wuhan. Nor would the Chicoms inform them of the potential danger. So selling off some deceased lab animals to local wet markets, or worse, deliberately running off with live virus material to sell at a premium on the dark web isn't that much of a muchness to them. Enter the Source (which the Chinese government is probably still trying to find.)
The Source, being an opportunist, bumbles the security measures, likely infecting his family, his friends, his neighborhood. This is the more deadly L-Strain that has so many panicked. For those bemoaning the naming of this virus, please note that the Chinese called it Wuhan 1. Now enters the Buyer. What region or nation desires to destroy Western culture which it view as an abomination? Let's go to the map and timeline. Early after the Chinese infections were named, which nation was second? Correct, it was Iran. So we have the feckless Source selling to a Buyer intent on attempting bioterrorism on a large scale. Iranians know they can't get into Israel. They'd be stopped before they could reach the Wailing Wall. But Italy houses the seat of early Christiandom in the location of the Vatican and the person of the Pope. Even though Catholics are DEEPLY divided on the nature and intentions of the current Pontiff, he is the figurehead for a huge number of Catholics around the world. Please notice that Italy has had to deal with EU's open border policies and so could not check who is coming in or from where. Italy now has the second most cases and deaths.
The numbers will only grow. It's causing social and political chaos here and abroad. It's reshaping the social functions of the US as we recoil from gatherings and indeed are canceling festivals and events faster than Antifa can cancel Ben Shapiro. This doesn't feel like a "normal" epidemic to me. It feels like something else. And I think it feels like something more to others as well. I do wish for once politicians would stop using this to push agenda. I also wish that we could shut down social media for a few days until cooler heads prevail. IF something is going on here beyond what the MSM is being allowed to tell us for security reasons, I hope, at some point, they will let us know the truth. But then again they told us they'd open all the records on the JFK assassination after fifty years and that didn't happen either.
If you liked this column, send me a roll of toilet paper. Kidding.....sort of.
I've been doing puzzles and reading mysteries since I was nine. Word puzzles are the best. Confusing mysteries, especially set in a specific place, are amazing because it's like visiting a location or time. I read mysteries set in Rome, mysteries set on the Navajo Rez, even mystery thrillers that reflect our worst fears from the headlines. Puzzles are fun to figure out. Mysteries are fun to anticipate. It's become a habit to look at situations and wonder "What if.....?"
Consider epidemics. Human history is full of them. The Black Death, The Spanish Flu, Polio, AIDS, Zika were surges of disease that ravaged different populations. I remember the Polio Epidemic of the late 1950's. As a very young child I remember lining up in the school gym of Dowling Elementary waiting to get my sugar cube in a paper condiment cup soaked with a vaccine engineered by Jonas Salk. The AIDS epidemic was frightening because it was a communicable disease that nobody wanted to really discuss. We've had disease promoted by poor hygiene, crowded populations and utter disregard for access to vaccinations. But this time is different.
The "Corona Virus" or COVID-19 if you prefer, appears to be an engineered virus. The prefix "novel" means it hasn't been identified prior to this outbreak. That doesn't mean it didn't exist, but it most likely didn't exist in a human accessed format. To look more closely we need to look at Wuhan. (and NO it is not "racist" to call this the Wuhan virus any more than it was racist to call the Spanish Flu by that name...). Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China has been a huge research entity for awhile now. Maybe it's just a coincidence that COVID-19 manifested in that region, but since the 1960's many of our flu bugs seem to originate there. The way epidomologists look at mass infections of populations is to use timelines and maps. Here are a few examples:
Real time chart of COVID-19 outbreak (made by a 17 year old! If you go there, give him some props)
I'm putting in some graphics mainly to get people to focus. But you should go to the website linked HERE and investigate for yourself.
So here's your outbreak. Here's the path of the pathogens as it were (Biology pun, I love gallows humor). We can see it started in China, with the "official" date of 12/24/2019 which is most likely a month later than it was really first introduced into the human petri dish of Chinese culture. From there, for awhile, the second largest outbreak was in Iran. This is dark humor indeed since they claim to have nothing to do with the Chinese officially. The existence of the virus in Iran proves otherwise. From there the virus moves to Italy which is now second in terms of total cases and deaths. Part of this is due to the aging population in Italy, but it also says a great deal about crowded conditions and open borders. Both play a role in this morality play.
From there, the third largest cluster is in Washington state. This is not an accident. While folks rant about the lack of security on our southern border, people from all over the world literally walk across from Canada, many of them in Washington state. Let's not forget that Washington is a "Sanctuary State" where people are discouraged from asking questions or making observations about the living conditions of others. Even now, I am willing to bet that the tolerant folks in Seattle are loathe to ask someone who is sitting on the bus by them coughing if they have COVID-19. This idea that you should not defend yourself from something or someone who could be a threat is a very dangerous idea. But that is the nature of what has happened in the culture of the Left Coast.
The first and worst outbreak was in a senior rest home. If I was an investigator, I would look at workers who were dealing with multiple patients. This would point to nursing staff, but even more to food handlers and service workers. If I was a profiler I would say this was a member of the food services staff who was ill or living with someone who was ill. It is likely they don't speak English and were fearful of being turned over to ICE. What's scarier, that same person may be working at multiple facilities. Remember food services means not just rest homes, but also hospitals, schools, public buildings. Look up the history of Typhoid Mary if you want a similar scenario in real life.
As a result, Americans who are currently raised to believe they can control outcomes are panic buying things like bleach, toilet paper and bottled water. God knows I'd rather face the apocalypse with a good bottle of Bourbon and a cheeseburger, but I digress. We have a generation that doesn't know how to handle adversity AT ALL. They seek internet solutions and blame politicians when none of that has any bearing on when and where the virus landed. All I can say is thank God the "Greatest Generation" had enough balls to endure the deprivation of the Great Depression and the mobilization of WWII because I'm not sure the current crop of young people could do it. Sometimes you have to learn how to respond in spite of your fears. When I think of the college kids with safe rooms because they can't endure the words of a conservative speaker or the people who melt down because they don't like who gets elected, I wonder if some massive psy-op program has removed maturity from the population.
Now we get to the total conjecture part of my column.
IF I was an evil villain intent on destroying Western Civilization, how would I do it?
The Chinese are reliant on American and European markets for their newfound wealth. They would not knowingly destroy it. But with wealth, also comes envy. There are many Chinese millionaires now. There are also many underpaid tech workers who are more interested in acquiring wealth than moral and ethical concerns. These folks are probably not particularly knowledgable about the nature of research in Wuhan. Nor would the Chicoms inform them of the potential danger. So selling off some deceased lab animals to local wet markets, or worse, deliberately running off with live virus material to sell at a premium on the dark web isn't that much of a muchness to them. Enter the Source (which the Chinese government is probably still trying to find.)
The Source, being an opportunist, bumbles the security measures, likely infecting his family, his friends, his neighborhood. This is the more deadly L-Strain that has so many panicked. For those bemoaning the naming of this virus, please note that the Chinese called it Wuhan 1. Now enters the Buyer. What region or nation desires to destroy Western culture which it view as an abomination? Let's go to the map and timeline. Early after the Chinese infections were named, which nation was second? Correct, it was Iran. So we have the feckless Source selling to a Buyer intent on attempting bioterrorism on a large scale. Iranians know they can't get into Israel. They'd be stopped before they could reach the Wailing Wall. But Italy houses the seat of early Christiandom in the location of the Vatican and the person of the Pope. Even though Catholics are DEEPLY divided on the nature and intentions of the current Pontiff, he is the figurehead for a huge number of Catholics around the world. Please notice that Italy has had to deal with EU's open border policies and so could not check who is coming in or from where. Italy now has the second most cases and deaths.
The numbers will only grow. It's causing social and political chaos here and abroad. It's reshaping the social functions of the US as we recoil from gatherings and indeed are canceling festivals and events faster than Antifa can cancel Ben Shapiro. This doesn't feel like a "normal" epidemic to me. It feels like something else. And I think it feels like something more to others as well. I do wish for once politicians would stop using this to push agenda. I also wish that we could shut down social media for a few days until cooler heads prevail. IF something is going on here beyond what the MSM is being allowed to tell us for security reasons, I hope, at some point, they will let us know the truth. But then again they told us they'd open all the records on the JFK assassination after fifty years and that didn't happen either.
If you liked this column, send me a roll of toilet paper. Kidding.....sort of.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Classic Conflicts in Modern Liberalism
Why are liberals so angry?
Recovering from major surgery I found myself going through various news articles, columns and think pieces on both sides of most contemporary issues. In almost every case, what begins as a discussion or the statement of a thesis dissolves into speculation, rumor mongering and outright disinformation. I'm not exonerating either sides because conservatives have their blowhards as well , including our current president. But what seems to me to be more of an issue is the way anger seems to go from zero to fifty with no moderation in between. Most psychologists would consider this an irrational overreaction to go from complacency to anger and to do so with such zeal. So my question stands, why are liberals so angry?
Liberals, by and large, have put HUMANITY as defined by an overall stereotype on the pedestal in terms of control. There are no accidents anymore-there is always blame to be levied. Events in earlier times that would have been labeled catastrophes, natural disasters or mere accidents are now assessed blame, usually with some I told you so agenda narrative attached. We saw this with Hurricanes Harvey, Sandy where instead of gather together like in prior storms, the narrative flowed fast and furious to seek someone or something to blame. While there were questions about the efficacy of placing supplies in Slidell, which was later hit by the surge, is that something anyone could have predicted? We saw this with the Fukushima disaster, where a natural event caused unpredictable and unprecedented damage. Was this a situation that anyone wanted? Yet the blame was attached.
This attitude has filtered down to individual tragedies and events as well. It used to be that if someone caused many deaths, the person committing the crime was blamed. Now instead there is blame for a law, blame for a politician, blame spread around to everyone except the action person who acted. We see this in education where teachers are now blamed for student failures even if they have pulled all stops to take action and try to help students succeed. We see this in life where parents exonerate their child from all consequences of bad decisions, lawyering up first and asking questions second. This is what happens when we allow Man to believe that all outcomes can be controlled and that it is the job of a benevolent, but oppressive government to pick winners and losers.
Conservatives, by and large, tend to place more emphasis on the concept of chance and free will-assigning blame when someone arbitrarily ignores common sense or prevailing attitudes. This is not always the easy path, because it lacks risk and can prevent innovation. But what conservatism does supply is structure. Children thrive on structure. It allows them to scaffold their own dreams on top of existing knowledge as opposed to simply stating a goal and assuming the world wants it to become fact.
Liberals, on the other hand, tend to try to play god and manufacture positive outcomes. We see this with preferential admission into colleges and hiring. But even more it has seeped down to
where entire educational and social systems are modified to INSURE that groups succeed even to the point of weighting their test scores to give the appearance of success. This is counterintuitive to the entire history of humanity. It was always the successful, strong, innovative or wise who survived to improve the general populations lot in life. Now we are subsidizing mediocrity for the sake of kindness and at the same time perpetuating second class reasoning and absolute lies as the answer to our problems.
You cannot legislate morality. You cannot guarantee outcomes no matter how you try. You can tax it, you can formulate it and you can create paradigms to encourage it, but humanity overall is about the individual and that individual's successes or failures in life. When you prop up those who are not willing to put in the effort, you end up with a demanding, immature workforce which expects to be overly compensated for less work. This opens the doors for those populations who DO want to do the heavy lifting to succeed in disproportionate ways. An example would be the incursion of people from eastern Asia to the US. Their native culture encompasses responsibility to elder, the family and hard work.
The school where I taught was very diverse. We had students from all around the world. In that setting it was apparent that different cultural overlays had more impact on success than imposed programs or action. In many Korean families the entire family is involved in the family's business. Children are expected to excel, even if they came here not knowing English. Compare that to Hispanic students who were born here, who have been in ELL programs since PreK and who still haven't managed to learn English well enough to graduate until they are past the normal age. What does this say about that culture? Of course it comes down to more than race or culture. White kids fail. Girls fail. But overall the demographic group that struggles the most in school are black males. What societal ill promotes this lack of caring about success in academic fields? Could the glorification of sports at every level have something to do with it? Could the number of single parent families have a role?
When you move all of this to the government level, it appears we have two views. There's Mommy Government, which wants to save everyone and keep people happy even if it means taking away the freedom to be a failure if we want. Then you have Daddy Government which is all about rules and limits and requirements. Imagine how agencies, torn like the children of divorce, between these two overriding attitudes will alternately function and fail ultimately creating the kind of public outcry we're seeing in the Senate right now. My Dad used to discuss politics with us at the dinner table. He said "Politics is a pendulum, as surely as it swings one way, it will swing the opposite way just as far." We are seeing that now as the Left has had eight years of unchecked and unreasonable control. And the folks in control don't like the Right pushing back.
Recovering from major surgery I found myself going through various news articles, columns and think pieces on both sides of most contemporary issues. In almost every case, what begins as a discussion or the statement of a thesis dissolves into speculation, rumor mongering and outright disinformation. I'm not exonerating either sides because conservatives have their blowhards as well , including our current president. But what seems to me to be more of an issue is the way anger seems to go from zero to fifty with no moderation in between. Most psychologists would consider this an irrational overreaction to go from complacency to anger and to do so with such zeal. So my question stands, why are liberals so angry?
Liberals, by and large, have put HUMANITY as defined by an overall stereotype on the pedestal in terms of control. There are no accidents anymore-there is always blame to be levied. Events in earlier times that would have been labeled catastrophes, natural disasters or mere accidents are now assessed blame, usually with some I told you so agenda narrative attached. We saw this with Hurricanes Harvey, Sandy where instead of gather together like in prior storms, the narrative flowed fast and furious to seek someone or something to blame. While there were questions about the efficacy of placing supplies in Slidell, which was later hit by the surge, is that something anyone could have predicted? We saw this with the Fukushima disaster, where a natural event caused unpredictable and unprecedented damage. Was this a situation that anyone wanted? Yet the blame was attached.
This attitude has filtered down to individual tragedies and events as well. It used to be that if someone caused many deaths, the person committing the crime was blamed. Now instead there is blame for a law, blame for a politician, blame spread around to everyone except the action person who acted. We see this in education where teachers are now blamed for student failures even if they have pulled all stops to take action and try to help students succeed. We see this in life where parents exonerate their child from all consequences of bad decisions, lawyering up first and asking questions second. This is what happens when we allow Man to believe that all outcomes can be controlled and that it is the job of a benevolent, but oppressive government to pick winners and losers.
Conservatives, by and large, tend to place more emphasis on the concept of chance and free will-assigning blame when someone arbitrarily ignores common sense or prevailing attitudes. This is not always the easy path, because it lacks risk and can prevent innovation. But what conservatism does supply is structure. Children thrive on structure. It allows them to scaffold their own dreams on top of existing knowledge as opposed to simply stating a goal and assuming the world wants it to become fact.
Liberals, on the other hand, tend to try to play god and manufacture positive outcomes. We see this with preferential admission into colleges and hiring. But even more it has seeped down to
where entire educational and social systems are modified to INSURE that groups succeed even to the point of weighting their test scores to give the appearance of success. This is counterintuitive to the entire history of humanity. It was always the successful, strong, innovative or wise who survived to improve the general populations lot in life. Now we are subsidizing mediocrity for the sake of kindness and at the same time perpetuating second class reasoning and absolute lies as the answer to our problems.
You cannot legislate morality. You cannot guarantee outcomes no matter how you try. You can tax it, you can formulate it and you can create paradigms to encourage it, but humanity overall is about the individual and that individual's successes or failures in life. When you prop up those who are not willing to put in the effort, you end up with a demanding, immature workforce which expects to be overly compensated for less work. This opens the doors for those populations who DO want to do the heavy lifting to succeed in disproportionate ways. An example would be the incursion of people from eastern Asia to the US. Their native culture encompasses responsibility to elder, the family and hard work.
The school where I taught was very diverse. We had students from all around the world. In that setting it was apparent that different cultural overlays had more impact on success than imposed programs or action. In many Korean families the entire family is involved in the family's business. Children are expected to excel, even if they came here not knowing English. Compare that to Hispanic students who were born here, who have been in ELL programs since PreK and who still haven't managed to learn English well enough to graduate until they are past the normal age. What does this say about that culture? Of course it comes down to more than race or culture. White kids fail. Girls fail. But overall the demographic group that struggles the most in school are black males. What societal ill promotes this lack of caring about success in academic fields? Could the glorification of sports at every level have something to do with it? Could the number of single parent families have a role?
When you move all of this to the government level, it appears we have two views. There's Mommy Government, which wants to save everyone and keep people happy even if it means taking away the freedom to be a failure if we want. Then you have Daddy Government which is all about rules and limits and requirements. Imagine how agencies, torn like the children of divorce, between these two overriding attitudes will alternately function and fail ultimately creating the kind of public outcry we're seeing in the Senate right now. My Dad used to discuss politics with us at the dinner table. He said "Politics is a pendulum, as surely as it swings one way, it will swing the opposite way just as far." We are seeing that now as the Left has had eight years of unchecked and unreasonable control. And the folks in control don't like the Right pushing back.
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