Thirty-eight weeks and counting. I could start counting down the weeks leading up to the one-year point, but it's so much easier to count up. Just as the covid-19 stats are always counting up. Virginia hit new highs again today in terms of new cases and the seven-day rolling average of cases. The percent positivity was also up but nowhere near a new high. It's closer to 11 percent now than it is to the magical 10 percent. Actually, the World Health Organization likes 5 percent positivity, but we either don 't belong to that any longer or we are on our way out. I haven't discussed it with Uncle Joe, but I imagine we'll be re-upping come January.
Parade, the Sunday newspaper insert, today included the feature that appears almost everywhere this time of year. Parade called it "We Remember: Parade Salutes the Stars Who Made Our Lives More Interesting." These features always bother me, not because they salute our dearly departed. They bother me because they leave anyone who dies between the list's appearance and January 1, next year, in the lurch. By the time New Year's Eve and Day roll around, we're in no mood to look back and see who died in December. I wonder if the people compiling such features ever wonder about that. I may have seen one or two that did list the December, previous year, deaths, but those were lists ordered by months in which the deaths took place, which may have been why the compilers included it. The Parade feature appeared to be ordered by how well known they thought the deceased were or maybe not. I certainly would not have listed Sean Connery and Alex Trebek on the second page. I think I'd demote Diana Rigg and Charlie Daniels to the second page. The other three on the front page were Chadwick Boseman, the Notorious RBG, and Kobe Bryant.
Another "death" factoid I encountered this morning is that fewer than half of Americans know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. They way that is worded suggests to me that these people were not flat-out Holocaust deniers; they just didn't learn, didn't care, or forgot how many Jewish people died. (I almost typed "how many deaths" but corrected myself to be true to a recent post here.) None of those three reasons is justifiable. We should be teaching the Holocaust in history or social studies classes. possibly not starting at too young a grade, but certainly by middle or high school. We should cover it often enough and in enough detail (you don't have to go into too great detail to teach that 6 million people died) that students reflect on the magnitude of that number and don't forget it.
Shriners Hospitals for Children has been running an ad featuring children singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" line by line. I've always enjoyed Christmas music, though not before Thanksgiving or after Epiphany. Hearing the kids sing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" makes me think of all those who can't be home this year. There are always people who can't be home for Christmas, the military being the first group that comes to mind. This year, though, there are many people who will stay away from home intentionally so as not to spread the novel coronavirus to loved ones or to people encountered while traveling to and from "home." [As I type this, I am listening to the album Noel by Josh Groban. You can probably guess what song just started playing.] There will be an extra layer of sadness to the "if only in my dreams." Staying away voluntarily may hurt more. I fall back on the social media post that not spending {insert holiday here} with family this year helps ensure they will be around for next year's celebrations. It may not help much nor help all the time, but I hold that thought.
I could expound on The Lame Duck's request for the names of the Republican Congresspeople who have acknowledged Uncle Joe as legitimately elected. Can you say "enemies list"? Beyond that, I refuse to let The Duck sully the Christmas I'm feeling listening to Christmas music. I'll confront reality again tomorrow. Maybe.
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