The View from the Hermitage, Day 344

We've hit the magic half million deaths from covid-19. Given that we are surely under-counting cases and deaths, we really hit the mark some time ago, but I'll stick to what is known. This morning's Washington Post offered three ways in which to visualize just how large 500,000 is. I like the one showing how large a monument analogous to that for Vietnam War deaths would be; to see it, you have to scroll past 61 of the 9,804 tour buses it would take to hold 500,000 tourists. It is also thought-provoking to consider how quickly we got to this milestone. We hit the 100,000 mark in May 2020 and the 200,000 mark in September 2020. Then things sped up with 300,000 reached in December 2020; 4,000, in January 2021; and 500,000 just one month later or now. If cases were not slowing down to the extent they are, I'd propose a family pool on when we will hit 1,000,000 deaths. (We're actually doing one on when the first student at the local university dies from covid-19.)

There was a column in this morning's Guardian asking a reader to consider life as it was a year ago and then reflect on what he or she missed. It was a harder exercise than I thought it would be. Some things that immediately jumped to mind as being missed, when given thought, dropped off the list or became more specific. "Coffee or a meal with friends" became "coffee or a meal with (insert names here)." I do miss seeing my mom on a regular basis. I think about her a lot and wonder how she's doing and how that fits with how she tells me she's doing. I do miss travel. I miss the ability to take a winter holiday far enough north to see the aurora, or a trip to Maine to see my brother and good friends, or a grand adventure to somewhere The Professor and I have never been. I miss the ability to call for a medical appointment I can keep; my last foray into the world of medicine was a mammogram on March 17, 2020. I do miss regular hair appointments and the occasional pedicure. I was getting manicures as well pre-pandemic, but I can't say I've missed those. Maybe that's an average number of things missed; I don't know how many things other people say they have missed. 

At the juncture of psychology and politics are the results of a Cambridge University study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B reporting that people with extremist attitudes tend to view the world in black and white and struggle with complex tasks that require intricate mental steps. They are also not good at regulating emotion, acting more impulsively and seeking out "emotionally evocative experiences." Finally, participants prone to dogmatism actually have problems with processing evidence even at a perceptual level. The black and white versus shades of grey difference makes sense to me. I'm still thinking about the part about regulating emotion. I know some pretty liberal (for lack of a better word to be the opposite of extremist) who seem to seek out "emotionally evocative experiences." And I need a bit more detail about what it means to process evidence at a perceptual level. 

Finally, and totally not related to anything else in this post, a shipment of breakfast cereal being shipped from South America to Hong Kong was seized after the discovery that the sugar coating on the cereal was not sugar but cocaine. The article listed some other creative ways in which cocaine has been transported including under wigs or under the habits of fake nuns, in hollowed out pineapples, and my personal favorite, in fake buttocks. Of course, since thinking that I have been unable to un-think of the Sir Mix-a-Lot song "Baby Got Back." I hope I have not just given you my earworm.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 318

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.