December 31--AT LAST🎉

Like so many others I am really glad to see the end of 2020. I don't expect all that much to change, at least not immediately. The virus is still raging and will be for a while. The latest estimates from the expert indicate no real improvement until March or April. Yes we do have two vaccines but, according to the news, the promised 20 million vaccinations (vaccinations not vaccine doses) has resulted in only a little over 2 million vaccinations and some 17 million doses actually delivered. The news this morning said that the health department in Broward County Florida that was taking reservations for those who wanted to get their shots closed down after only one day because they had appointments through February. And we still haven't finished with the elections since Georgia still has two run-off elections for their senatorial positions. But the end of this interminable election season that began the same day #45 was inaugurated. I hope he simply trudges off stage and doesn't announce candidacy for 2024. I could go on but almost everything roiling this country remains but with a partial change in personnel in the government. We'll see what develops.

But this brought a smile this morning. I saw the snippet the news featured earlier but the long version is worth a view.

It has been a strange year--2020. If we hadn't had the news (cable and internet) we wouldn't have known much of what was happening. Our lives have gone along much as they have before and as we expect them to go in 2021. We haven't seen family as much as we normally would have. TheC OVID restrictions never bothered us because they didn't cause us to change much. I quickly made our own masks and am now making some new ones to incorporate the third layer now recommended. We don't much like crowds and the virus has simply made us more aware of people around us. That won't change even when the pandemic eventually wanes. I suggested to mom that we might consider continuing to wear masks during the cold/flu season. We got the flue shot this year but there are no vaccines for colds. And too many experts say that even when the pandemic is over the coronavirus won't go away.

 Merry Christmas

(or Happy Hanukkah or Kwanza, or what ever holiday you observe)

Not a nice way to start Christmas morning but perhaps on par for this miserable year.

Of course, #45 gave the country a nasty gift when he vetoed the defense bill and threatened to do the same to the Covid/appropriations bill threatening a government shut down, ending of unemployment for millions and the termination of programs a lot of people depend on right now. He tried to justify his actions by claiming he REALLY wanted more money for individuals and objected to "wasteful" spending included in the bill. That is just self-serving crap as he doesn't really care about the plight of the little people and had wanted those "wasteful" provisions in other funding bills. All yesterday news pundits and commentators tried to understand his motives. None of them mentioned a factor I have been thinking for the last week or so: he is a vindictive sack of shit and this gave him an opportunity to screw with most of the groups he feels particularly aggrieved by: Republican politicians who aren't sufficiently "loyal" or differential, Mitch McConnell and others who have already acknowledged Biden's win and who are telling some of their caucus not to try to interfere with the certification of the Electoral College results, and the 80+ millions of us who didn't vote for him. What is assured now is that, unless he decides to be decent and signs the last bill, the government will be shut down for at least one or maybe two days (because the funding runs out Sunday and the Senate  and House won't be back in session before Tuesday). For more on the impact of the situation see what The Washington Post had to say.

Most of the bloggers I have been reading have the same kind of blahs we do here. It just doesn't feel much like the season of "good cheer" this year. Normally we would be having dinner with my brother and his side of the family but that isn't wise this year. Brother said his son and one of his grandsons had a mild cases of the virus and one of his late wife's family had a more serious case. That is coming way too close. He said their own celebrations are much scaled back with church and a small family dinner.

 December 21--Winter Solstice

Shortest day/longest day--from on the days will start getting longer. Our winter wreath has been on the door for about a week. We don't really do much for Christmas and this year we will be staying home just as we did for Thanksgiving. Most of the rest of the family is doing the same.

The blah that is 2020 has infected some of my gardening thoughts for 2021. I have thought about what to plant but haven't really decided. Usually by this time I have my seed orders in and my transplant list made out. As of today--only vague ideas and none have sparked any enthusiasm. I am not starting any seeds inside this year. I have to simply recognize that I don't have the space to devote to it. I gave my nephew my grow lights.

December 22

Andrew Bacevich makes a number of good points in the essay on the "Madness of War, American Style."

December 23

Well, #45 threw the turds into the punchbowl. After weeks of being absent from any form of governing he suddenly takes an interest in the funding bills passed Sunday night. Once again he cut Moscow Mitch's legs out from under him. Pelosi immediately called his bluff and is setting up an amendment to meet #45's demand that the $600 direct payments to individuals be raised to $2000. He mentioned some unspecified expenditures he thought wasteful that he wanted eliminated. He hasn't yet vetoed the bills and one, the Defense authorization, was passed by margins which indicate the congress can over ride easily. The COVID relief measures are attached to the funding bill that would pay for government operations through at least the first couple of months of 2020. He might let the bills become law without his signature which can happen since the legislatures are not in recess. I don't know where it will end besides in the inauguration on January 20. [update: #45 has just vetoed the Defense Authorization bill]

Britain has discovered another variant of the Covid-19 virus that they think is much more transmissible though not necessarily more lethal. The BBC segment this morning indicated that the South Africans have found other more easily transmitted variants and are working on those. But the announcement has upset everything it seems. They have a massive back up at the ports where truckers are backed up with both sides demanding recent negative tests before allowing the "accompanied" cargoes to pass borders. And the British authorities have imposed severe lockdowns in the southeast including London.

 December 20

Well it has been one heck of a ten day stretch. Some of it has been much more fun to watch than to comment on--at least at the time. A week ago last Friday the FDA gave emergency use authorization to the Pfizer vaccine and all weekend the news was about the preparations to roll it out.  I think the reaction of the reporters, the Pfizer employees packing up the vaccine doses for shipment, the doctors and others interviewed for the story indicates exactly how much stress this pandemic has caused. Everyone was euphoric. I was glad to see it though my thoughts were tinged with both a sense of realism and skepticism. I am not in the first tiers of people to receive it as I am not in a congregate care facility and my only (known) conditions that would make me somewhat susceptible to a bad case are age and obesity. Mom is in the same situation with her age and her history of hypothyroidism. We wear our masks, avoid crowds and maintain our distances, and are washing our hands more often that we used to. We don't expect to be offered the vaccine before summer. In case anyone thinks I am complaining, I am not. The procedure outlined for the distribution of the vaccine made sense which is a surprise given how inept this administration has been. That led to my skepticism and that skepticism was rewarded when the first snafu arose in the distribution and the states found their allotments suddenly and without explanation radically reduced. Pfizer blamed the government and the government blamed the company. Now the Moderna vaccine has been given emergency approval and, though the euphoria is a bit less, it has also been greeted enthusiastically. Other vaccines are in the pipeline so we might have a number of effective possibilities but the time line is still for another year of social distancing and mask wearing.

On the political front, #45 still insists he won the election even though he clearly didn't and still insists that there was widespread fraud though no one has found any fraud that would change enough votes to allow him to actually win. He tried to get the elected officials in the swing states that gave Biden his victory to seat an alternate set of electors to vote for him (didn't work), hoped for "faithless electors" tp over-rule the voters (didn't happen), and is now pinning hopes on the January 9 joint session of congress that has to accept the electoral college vote to somehow negate the result. It is interesting how the benchmarks  changed throughout as each one came and went without changing the results. Now there is talk of martial law and the seizure of voting machines somehow infected with the ghost of Hugo Chavez so the military can supervise new elections.  In a often quoted bit from Benjamin Franklin when he was asked what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had given us: a republic, if you can keep it. The key part there is the "if you can keep it." And watching not just #45 but all of his minions trying to subvert the electorate I wonder if we will keep it much longer.

Then our internet and cable went out late Wednesday morning and we didn't get it back until early Friday afternoon. I am always amazed by how much those two services have become deeply embedded in our lives. I was able to read on my iPad and did quite a bit of stitching. Mom was able to find an unsecured network could piggyback on to continue to use the internet. I couldn't get on it. I don't use the cloud for my e-book library because if the internet is our I can't get access to those books that might be on the cloud. Then we had some difficulty after service was restored because I couldn't get back on. That had me in a screaming rage. We finally got everything back but I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't find a way to limit how much I depend on the internet.

Perhaps other institutions and various governments should also think about that given the massive hack on major companies and government departments/agencies. Even though most intelligence agencies and experts attributed the hack to Russian spy agencies #45 simply can't accept that his good buddy Vlad would do such a dastardly thing. It must have been the Chinese, of course, and it wasn't that bad anyway. What really flummoxed me was the story of how they got in--by using a third party security firm whose password was simply the company name followed by 1234. No one knows how deep the Russians went, what they may have gotten, or what they may have left behind. For anyone who thinks they can't do much I suggest two books: Ted Koppel's Lights Out and Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter.

 December 6

David Kaiser's analysis of our national problems.

Nimue Brown has a good comment on the controversy over statues.

December 7

Kaiser noted (see above) that both the dominant political parties have lost touch with the majority of Americans. Governments, both Republican and Democrat, have become increasingly estranged from those of us who don't live in the big urban bubbles and aren't part of the top of the economic food chain. And increasingly the needs of the lower 80% of the population aren't being met. This election has made me think that the best thing that might happen to us politically is a split of the Democrats between the "progressive" and the "establishment" wings and a comparative split of the Republicans between their traditional conservatives and the rabid theological fringe. We really need to find a way to negotiate between the various interests involved in each group.

Nimue Brown writes about the destruction of a statue of a city prominent in a city's (forgot which city) history. I remember the story when it hit the headlines. The man was also a slave trader and black residents took the statue down and pitched it in the river. Brown noted that the struggle is about what story is being told about the past, who from the past is honored and who is erased in the telling and honoring. Our own controversies over naming buildings, army bases and statues is much the same. And she also noted that many of the honors were given long after the people involved died and reflect not the times in which they lived but the tensions of the times in which the honors were given. I thought several times that both the honors and the criticism of them erased aspects of the history which would be best remembered. The demand that a building named for Woodrow Wilson at Princeton be renamed erased the fact that he was a President of the United States at a crucial time and was a President of Princeton. The honor tended to erase his view on race (as well as other flaws) and the criticism tended to erase his accomplishments successful or otherwise.

December 8

Just found this item at Naked Capitalism. The university system, at least in the U.S., has been on a decline for a good long time. I remember when Ohio reduced the programs in its public university system about 30 years ago. Costs were already out running revenues and the ability to generate new money. I remember arguing with a university president about robbing academic programs of resources to feed the athletics program which was, as the president noted generating money, but as my own research indicated still requiring twice as much more money than raised. I noted that but he simply said "I am sorry you feel that way." He basically gaslighted me. I have resented for some time the fact that university football programs are something of a "farm team" for the pros. Only a few years ago Alaska cut almost all higher education in the state because of budget shortfalls. The oil royalties aren't really keeping up. The only thing truly propping up colleges and universities in this country is the system of student debt in which the school gets paid whether the student is employable, the student foots the bill whether he/r can find work that will let him/her pay off the debt in their life time, and the lenders get paid no matter what because the borrower can't clear an unpayable debt through bankruptcy. It is a racket. Perhaps the whole system should crash.

December 9

Only three more weeks and this year from hell will be over. I don't expect 2021 will start out much better. We will still have the virus going around and I expect a Christmas surge to come on top of the surge we have from Thanksgiving and fall. That will carry us through most of January. Vaccinations will only be starting to come on line. Did you see the news about #45 declining Phizer's offer to earmark another 50 million doses? So now we will have to get in line behind all the countries that have already ordered their supply. His executive order doesn't really do anything to resolve that situation. It just made nice smoke and mirror optics.

Crooks & Liars pointed out that the pandemic is going to hit new social security recipients hard or rather those who are age 60 and looking to retire in the next couple of years. Because of the way the basic benefit is calculated the recipient's earnings in the next to last year before retirement are extremely important. This year has been abysmal for anyone's earnings who depends on wages for their support. This shouldn't be a surprise because the drop in employment has shortened the time before both Social Security and Medicare exhaust the "trust funds" payments depend on. Add that to the mess state and local finances are in thanks to the drop in taxes and fees in addition to the extra expenses involved with handling the virus.

What is old is new again--or something like that. I wonder if this will become a widespread accompaniment to what expected to be  a pandemic fueled surge in homelessness.

 Another sunny but cold day here. December 3

I have been reading some blogs I follow regularly from writers a bit east and south of us and they got slammed by the snow that barely brushed us. All of that is pretty well gone. I have been busy trying to straighten and reorganize the What-not Room. I still have way too much stuff to somehow put into it but I will find a way to get it in. I am doing well with my resolve to not buy any more needlework until I use up some of my stash. I might succeed in that resolution because I have the new Zoom Loom and Kayu loom I need to learn how to use. I bought them as a way to use up some of my stash--especially the tag ends of yarn from crochet projects. And as an alternative to crochet. I haven't done as well with my determination to refrain from buying more books until I have read more of the ones I already have. But I have slowed down my purchases.

Reading today"

    Andrea Mazzarino at Tomdispatch. The thought expressed in Engelhardt's into to her piece (Stop Thanking the Troops and Lend a Hand) reflects my thoughts to a T. I have resented the constant refrain of "Thank You For Your Service" whenever a military member or veteran was interviewed. And Mazzarino says what I have said here in my space so many rungs below the level that makes decisions in they country--start funding the care of soldiers and start examining carefully the expenditures the Pentagon makes. The sexy high tech weapons systems (many of which don't work as advertised) are attractive and pay the contractors big bucks but that money might be better spent on people, the people who have served and sacrificed and the families who love them.

 December 2

Nice and sunny but it won't be warm. Another day where the temperature will probably top out in the mid 30s. Thankfully the high winds are gone. A few green things are hanging on in the gardens: sage, oregano, roses. For almost everything else I am leaving the dead foliage in place to protect the soil from rain spatter. A few things I will look at in the spring to see if it comes back. Now is the time to plan what seeds to get. They will all have to be able to sprout and mature in situ because I won't be starting any inside.

Jeff Valdiva at Medium tries to answer a question that has bedeviled me: why so many voted for #45 in his winning election in 2016 and in his failed re-election bid this year. He might be right that it is a reaction to what has become a fraught society where everyone is viciously judged and found wanting, a reaction to a shaming culture. None of us like being told what to do or think and sometimes it feels as though someone somewhere is trying to micromanage us. And it pisses us off. I didn't vote for #45 because of his repugnant qualities but I do understand the reaction that would drive people to do so. Instead of voting for an asshole we simply ignore the demands that we tow this or that line on whatever.

I was listening to one of the interviews with an epidemiologist who has been featured who was answering a question on how fast the COVID vaccines had been developed compared to earlier vaccines. He said TEN YEARS. In other words, the last nine months of development came after a decade of study of coronaviruses. That makes sense. It has been about 10 years since the SARS MERS epidemics and they were also coronaviruses. The thrust of the interview was how much trust the public can have in a vaccine which has been rolled out so quickly especially with the tendency of the current administration to politicize and push the process.

 November 30

We have high, gusty winds today and the forecast says we won't get out of the mid 30s. The weather channel said possible rain and snow but the weather forecast on TV yesterday predicted just snow--possibly 2-5 inches. Oh, well, we didn't plan to go anywhere today. Tomorrow should be calmer and drier though no warmer. That is when we planned to go grocery shopping.

Welcome to December

Well, we got our shopping done. We had quite a bit since we only went out for milk last week.The snow largely melted and then froze on cars and pavement. We had to get the scrapers and de-icer out and spread salt on the walkways. Neither of us is interested in relearning how to ice skate. I am not really ready for winter weather but to get out of this miserable year we have to get through the dark and cold season.

Tom Engelhardt has a good post on our "Age of Opacity."

There is a lot of speculation about whether and how #45 and his grifting family might get pardoned for whatever unspecified crimes they may (or may not) have committed. I agree with most of what John Beckett said here. I don't agree that Ford was right to have pardoned Nixon. Any crimes Nixon committed should have been thoroughly investigated, litigated, and (if he was found guilty) punished. After all, Presidents are not above the law. Nixon did at least express some contrition for the whole sorry mess and basically retired from public life. If #45 agreed to retire and keep out of politics I wouldn't expect him to keep to the promise. He is, after all, the champion liar of all time. The only consolation I have if #45 and his sycophants get pardons is that such pardons only pertain to Federal charges. There are still state and City of New York charges possible. That is a "reality" show I would gleefully follow.