A big day, news-wise, or at least a big last half hour. The Big Ten conference has killed fall football but will try again in the spring. The Pac-12 conference heads are also meeting today and may very well do the same. I think the Atlantic Coast Conference (home of the local university) presidents meet tomorrow. Teams are dropping like flies, and I approve. Do I expect to be following college football in the spring? No, because I don't expect it will be any safer to play by then than it is now.
Let me refresh the CNN web page open in another tab. New news! Sources say that Biden has told Rep. Karen Bass that she was not the VP pick. The cynic in me says that she's not the pick because how could he run with a Karen? News flash! It's Kamala Harris, who could end up being the first female, first Black, and first Asian American vice president. Interestingly, I first really noticed Harris after one of the first Democratic debates when she pointed out to Biden that she'd been one of the black children bused in the interest of integrating public schools. I expect that HWSNBN will start flinging poo at her in this afternoon's presser.
In other news, Russia says that it has developed a working coronavirus vaccine. Is it safe? Putin claims that one of his daughters has taken it. When I read that this morning, my first cynical thought was to wonder if it was his least favorite daughter. Actually, I have no idea how many daughters Putin might have. Still on the coronavirus vaccine front, NIH Director Francis Collins says that there is no way a coronavirus vaccine will be available in pre-election October. Any vaccine said to be ready then would not have been adequately tested and would not be considered safe.
I emailed the election folks and bowed out of November's election. The Election Manager said she understood and there would be future elections at which they could use my help. In my initial email I said that once there was a reliable vaccine and treatment, I would be quite willing to return. I reported that the husband was still debating whether he would work but that I expected he would. By then he will have gone to the university multiple times, so going out to work the election would not be a huge deal. I suggested that were they to need an assistant precinct chief to replace me, the husband would be a good one.
I applied today for an absentee ballot for the November election. I can submit it by mail; it will have to be postmarked on or before November 3. I can also go to the voter registrar's office and hand it in. No one else can do that for me. I have to be the one handing over my ballot. This year there will supposedly be a tracking number that will let me verify that my ballot was received should I choose to mail it. My voting streak will be intact--I have voted in every election for which I have been eligible. Since I turned 18 in July 1974, that's quite a few.
And for the final news update, the Pac-12 conference is also postponing all fall sports. That leaves the ACC , the Southeastern, and the Big Twelve conferences still open to playing. I expect that by Friday, there just won't be any college football in the fall, at least not from what is known as the "Power Five" conferences. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. I hope I did not just guarantee that play will, in fact, continue.
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I've kept saying that I don't know what my son will be doing this term but now I do except that I don't, not really. The University have said what they are doing (hours not reduced, in term one half of the teaching hours will be face to face, groups smaller than 30 and they may add up to a month to the end of term three if needed). The problem is that he's on a music course, playing a brass instrument which at the moment is still on the banned list. His department haven't said what will be happening because at the moment they can deliver for string groups but not for wind players. They are recording attendance (I thought they did that anyway?) presumably for purposes of contact tracing. Clubs and societies can still meet, limit of 30 and the library has longer opening hours to make up for the limit on numbers. I imagine by Christmas it will all be perfectly normal.
We had a stunt with a politician's daughter eating burgers during the early days of BSE. I remembered the incident but not the politician (John Gummer, 1990). I'll wait for a tested vaccine, the way the government here has been performing, I might then just wait a bit more as it has a history of rushed purchases of merchandise that is later shown to be not fit for purpose.
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