The Department of Homeland Security says that for the next several weeks we will face heightened threats from the extremist groups who carried out the Capitol insurrection. Possible (I hope not likely) targets are elected officials and government facilities. Evidently, during Xpot's reign, the use of the term "domestic terrorist" was discouraged. That's what these people would be, though, if they plan for the attacks to destabilize the government or Americans' daily lives. I'd say I would keep my eyes open for warning signs, but if terrorists or extremists attack my 20-house subdivision, they're pretty hard up for targets.
I talked with my mom today. She had her first coronavirus vaccination last week and will get the second one in two weeks. She said that while all the residents of her assisted living facility got vaccinated, only about half of the staff did. The staff members she sees daily are all aides who likely have no medical training per se. Still, I find it disconcerting that in a facility that several months ago had twenty-some covid cases, so many people are declining the only real path we have toward herd immunity. Mr. Biden has pledged or at least expressed the desire to have vaccinated 300 million people in the US by the end of summer or early fall. How the people who refuse the vaccinations figure into that plan I do not know.
Bill and Melinda Gates have issued their annual letter. In it, they warn of "immunity inequality," a widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else. If large areas such as those countries Xpot disparaged as a certain type of hole remain unvaccinated, we will not be able to get the pandemic under control. They also called for the creation of a "global alert system" to detect disease outbreaks as they happen, and proposed "germ games" to help train first responders.
The covid death toll is currently about 423,000. The CDC says we could have 508,000 by mid-February. Still, it was interesting to hear on the news this morning that the per capita death rate in England is higher than that in the US. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Might the population density of the two countries play a factor? There probably is some obvious reason that is escaping me at the moment. If I think of it, I'll let you know.
A psychology professor at the local university published a column in which he recommended mandatory K-12 summer school. He cited the number of IQ points children lose each year that they are in front of a screen and not in a classroom. He noted that this decline will have economic effects likely reaching into the next century. Mandatory summer school, mornings only, offers the chance to get students back to where they should be. It should not be limited to the kids who are behind the others. Kids who have not declined in ability could get enrichment rather than remediation.
A few random pot-shots. Remember the wildfires in California? Areas cleared by fire now face flash floods and landslides. Talk about adding insult to injury. As many as 89,000 households have left San Francisco since March. People and companies are embracing the notion that for many jobs, people can work from anywhere. Miami, Florida and Austin, Texas are becoming the new tech hot spots. At the same time, working from home may raise interesting tax questions. If you work at home in one state for a company located in another state, which state gets your state income tax payment? Or do you have to pay tax in both states?
I put on my super-hero underpants and practiced using a warping board today. The warping board I'm using was made by Son #2 and is what he said he uses to warp his loom. I need to inquire as to how he uses it, because one hard part was that there was no real space in which to cross the warp threads. I also need to figure out where to secure my small rigid heddle loom so that I can load the warp. The warping board is clamped to my sewing room work table, leaving not enough room to secure the look there with it. That's a tomorrow problem, though. By the time I finished winding the warp, I knew I'd likely screw something up if I kept at it then. I guess I'll need those super-hero underpants tomorrow as well.
1 comment:
I take the reed off the loom and clamp it flat to a small side table, thread it, knot the ends in bunches behind the reed. At that point you can pretty much throw it about, there's no problam putting it back on the loom and securing the bouts to the back beam.
In the early stages covid ripped through residential care for the elderly, residents moved to and from hospital without testing, staff moved freely between homes and the focus was on hospitals rather than the people dying in their own home. By the time they'd realised that not all deaths were in hospital the damage was done.
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