Stay-at-Home Is a Good Thing

Why is believing in "stay-at-home" orders difficult to believe in the face of a severe lack of testing to determine the true breadth of coronavirus? From The New York Times:

• "As President Trump pushes to reopen the economy, most of the country is not conducting nearly enough testing to track the path and penetration of the coronavirus in a way that would allow Americans to safely return to work, public health officials and political leaders say."

The USA has a population of about 330 million. According to the Johns Hopkins real-time model, so far we have only given 3.3 million tests. That is 1% of the population.

One percent is less than a rounding error in any statistical model, yet we want to make national policy based on it?

I trust scientists, science, and public health officials. I do not trust politicians whose focus in on putting money in the hands of businessmen and businessmen who pander to politicians. I will obey the stay-at-home order in my state until I can be relatively sure that my own risk is minimized. That might even be longer than the current order ends on April 30.

I know many are in very different conditions than I am, living alone, retired with a pension and Social Security, a debt load that, while heavy, is manageable. I also know there are pressures on others that I do not have, and I equally sure that the risk of severe illness and death is far greater for my age-group. Making a small sacrifice is not a big deal for me.

Life's regrets. We all have at least one, right?

As I get into the last third of my time on this plane of existence, I ponder back to specific moments in my life. These moments might be precipitated by a thought, a song, or a television show.

Today, I had one of those experiences. I was watching a movie shot by a fellow over ten years living and working in Antarctica. He wintered over at the McMurdo Station, by far the largest inhabited outpost on the continent, for all those years, meaning he did not leave on the last jet that left in the summer. It is a beautiful movie because it is a beautiful place. I think his movie does not adequately convey the difficulties that come with living and working in extreme cold, in cramped spaces, with the same few people, in a world without light.

Kind of like Alaska, only colder. Much colder.

I recall spending my first winter there in 1977. My job was flying around the Interior, often above the Arctic Circle, in winter. Cold temperatures, blowing wind, reduced visibility...and did I mention cold temperatures? I recall having to drain the oil from my airplane's engine into a sealed container and sleeping with it in my sleeping bag; if I didn't, the oil would coagulate in the engine and would have lost all its lubricating properties, thus killing the engine permanently.

Watching the story of wintering over in Antarctica made me recall my time in the Navy in Coronado. I was what was called a 'Radarman,' meaning my job was to operate various kinds of shipboard radars under various conditions. While I was in Vietnam, I also had to repair the boat navigation radars that were installed on the two types of boats we had, the LSSC, Light SEAL Support Craft, and the MSSC, the Medium SEAL Support Craft. Even though I was not a trained ET, Electronics Technician, I knew enough about electronics and am smart enough to have figured out most of the common failures and repairs.

So I was very excited when I read that the Navy was seeking volunteers to winter over at McMurdo Station. One of the positions the Navy had was Electronic Technician, so I got the application and looked at it. I met the time-in-grade requirements and the description of the arduous winter conditions did not scare me - remember, this was many years before my time in Alaska - and I had the experience I thought would suffice. I had also read that not many sailors applied, so there wasn't much competition, which I considered a mitigating factor to my not being an ET. I was excited, so I sent the application in.

Then I waited. A good while later, a personnel clerk from somewhere in the Pentagon called me saying he had one question.

"Have you ever been to ET 'A'-school?"

My heart sank. Why? 'A'-school is the initial training a sailor gets after boot camp; it prepares the sailor for assignments based on the battery of aptitude tests given to all recruits in boot camp. Because I chose UDT/SEAL training during boot camp and was taken out of my 'normal' boot camp training, I took no aptitude tests other than those given to me before boot camp. Since I had volunteered for UDT training - the modern process is very different - I was sent to Coronado and not to any 'A'-school.

So, my answer to his question was 'no, my knowledge came from experience.'

And that ended my progress on the path to wintering over in Antarctica. So I watch the movie with a combination of sadness, longing, and a bit of lustful wonder...

Could I qualify now, as a 70-something, for a job with one of the contract companies now?

Will we experience a repeat of history?

Will we see a repeat of history? 

Will the world experience another, perhaps even greater depression?

Newly-elected, President Herbert Hoover came to office just before and "pursued a variety of policies in an attempt to lift the economy" during the initial part of the depression. Because he headed the federal government, he had many tools at his disposal, as did President Obama during the later Great Recession. Hoover, however, was a former businessman and politician and a conservative. The Great Depression became the central problem of the Hoover administration, but he was one who "opposed directly involving the federal government in relief efforts."

Sound familiar?

This 'minimal-government-involvement' mindset goes against many of the major economic thinkers and the financial processes put in place after the Great Depression to prevent - well, they hoped it would prevent - a proliferation of the conditions that gave rise to the greed and myopia that caused the Great Depression, and subsequently the Great Recession.

That mindset, however, fits very well with the elimination of the administrative order...

Gratitude for being a grandparent

This is from an article in Medium by an author I read:

• What’s amazing to me is how consistent this struggle is among every parent I talk to. The texts and social media posts bouncing around my circle all echo each other. We feel like we’re failing at both. Our kids don’t just need us — they need more of us. Our kids are acting out, abandoning the routines they already had, dropping naps, sleeping less, doing less — except for jumping on top of their parents, which is happening much more. We’re letting them watch far greater amounts of screen time than we ever thought we’d tolerate. Forget homeschooling success — most of us are struggling to get our kids to do the basics that would have accounted for a Saturday-morning routine before this pandemic.

What amazes me about this is the consistency the author conveys and what I see in my own, much smaller circle made up of people I either knew in high school or Bahá'ís I have known since the 1970s.

Namely, they are older and without at-home children. Often, as in my case, there is no spouse, no other human in the house.

We do not have to worry about homeschooling, keeping pre-teens from going crazy or damaging things (dogs, furniture, walls...themselves), and balancing whatever paid work there is with the necessity to give "enough" time to those children and perhaps a spouse.

A person I know is the parent of three children, all under the teenage years. There is a spouse and both parents have stay-at-home jobs now. The challenges my friend deals with are unlike anything in one's life experience. There are the stresses created by keeping children contained within a relatively small space (house and backyard), of keeping a large breed dog de-stressed by walking as often as possible, and dealing with a spouse's stressful new job, started just about the time the novel coronavirus began to make its presence felt.

There is very little 'downtime' for this new breed of parents. Considering this pandemic involves a novel coronavirus against which not one human on Earth has any immunity, there is no historical basis on which to rely; the decisions are far more frequent than day-to-day. They come minute-to-minute. There is no consistency; what worked an hour ago might fail now. There is no manual, no helpful book by an experienced pediatrician.

There is just the Now.

As I sit here in my own small cave, alone, writing these words, I am reminded that there was a time when I was one of those parents with a houseful of children, all needing attention, direction, guidance, and discipline. The difference, of course, is there was no novel coronavirus waiting to inflict incredible sickness on a body just around the corner.

My heart goes out to all parents with children, the children themselves, and the teachers who will have to deal with a wide variety of homeschooling results when they finally go back to school. The time between now and then will be stressful and chaotic for them.

I am glad I am a grandparent.

What noise down yonder pathway comes? Tis the piper come for payment.

It is time to pay the piper.

For the decades since the Great Recession, governments at all levels from the federal to the states and localities have cut public health funding almost out of existence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has had its budget whacked. In Maine, then-Governor Paul Le Page cut the state's health department nursing staff from 90 to less than 20. As Detroit neared bankruptcy, all of their health educators, the people who teach others how to be health-wise, were released. 100% of them. A former Oklahoma state representative, an emergency room doctor, said it is easier to cut public health than to cut personal benefits or access to care. 

 

And cut they did. While you might be inclined to blame the current Republicans for all this, there is plenty of blame to go around. This process of cut, cut, cut has happened under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Politicians cannot be accused of taking the long-view on something as seemingly benign as public health.

Until a pandemic shows up. One has.

Now the piper is demanding payment. A rapidly-increasing death toll is a cost of not being prepared, of being slow to react, and of misreading signs of a coronavirus against which not one person on Earth had immunity.

 

We have waited until the house is on fire to start interviewing firefighters. It is time to start thinking of mankind as one family living on this Earth. It is time to start thinking more long-term than we have. We need to prevent fires, not just put them out.

What do Facebook and East Nashville and Ankara have in common?

As I sit here this day reading a news report about the horrendous tornado that struck East Nashville, Tennessee, in the early morning hours a couple of days ago, resulting in significant damage, destruction, and death in a highly-populated area, I am reminded that Facebook, a medium that is often scorned, has a valuable place in the world.

On my own Facebook feed, I read threads about Bahá'ís whose apartment complexes were damaged beyond salvage, those whose domiciles were completely destroyed, and those who have not yet been heard from.

Leave aside the fact that for Bahá'ís, this is a very spiritual time of the year, our Nineteen Day Fast, and that we pray for divine guidance on every day. Things might change - as I write this, 26 have been killed and many people are still unaccounted for - but so far, none of my Facebook friends have family members who have been injured or worse. The only way I could possibly know is through Facebook. Some share their stories - as much as they can, having just survived something that has, no doubt, shaken them to their core - and some help others in small and large ways without expectation of thanks. They all have a very long, arduous path in front of them.

At times like these for them and their friends, near and far, being able to connect with those friends and for those friends to rally whatever support is needed - like a GoFundMe page that has already been established for one, resulting in several thousands of dollars already - the social medium called Facebook is a valuable helper. And I am sure there are thousands of others sharing stories and support on Facebook beside Bahá'ís.

So what do Facebook, East Nashville, and Ankara have in common?

Facebook. A place where high school friends from 50+ years ago can reconnect with their old chums and meet new ones.

Facebook. A place where those suffering a grievous killer tornado can go to ask for help, no matter how timidly or unwantedly...and have those requests answered quickly by others not in similar situations.

So yes, Facebook can be a bad place, a place easily abused for political, financial, or other nefarious desires. It can also be a place to meet, laugh, cry, ask for and give help when needed.

Amtrak isn’t known for pampering anyone. Or is it?

Here is a paragraph from a Bloomberg article, "Getting Americans into Train Travel," posted on Feb 5, 2020.

"Passenger rail hasn’t been easy for a long time in America. The private kind all but vanished in the 1970s when the nation’s corporate railroads talked the U.S. Congress into creating Amtrak. That enabled rail owners to ditch their sickly nonfreight routes at a time when riders were choosing cars and planes over trains.

Amtrak, which isn’t known for pampering anyone, has for almost 50 years been the only option for Americans journeying far from home by rail."

My only question is this:

Has the author never flown on a commercial airliner as a cabin-class passenger? 

In comparison to the sardine-can seating accommodations on today's modern jet, the seats on Amtrak are quite luxurious. Yes, you might have to pay for food - if what you get on many can be adequately called 'food' - and water if you want it...if the particular airline even offers food.

Amtrak is now headed by the former CEO of Delta Airlines, one of those airplane operators who jammed as many seats into the non-first class cabin as they could legally fit, regardless of the increasing girth and average weight of the average American flier. But he no longer has the final say in his new job; Amtrak is a government entity, so Congress has a say.

And we all know about the good the decisions Congress makes...

So Amtrak isn't known for pampering anyone? Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on your definition and perspective.