February 22

 It is still too early to see anything much outside though the bright, slightly-past-full moon indicates a sunny day--unless clouds come in. The forecast promises three days in the 40s so the snow that has already fallen should be diminished.

The news is still dominated by only a handful of stories--and most feel very remote from life at my level (retired and on fixed income). Queen Elizabeth has a mild case (so far) of covid even though she has had all vaccination shots recommended. Because of her age they are watching very carefully. Prince Charles also has another breakthrough infection even though he has also been fully vaccinated and has even had his own previous breakthrough infection.

The Ukrainian situation is still, as it has been for most of this year so far, the major story. Most of the coverage is highly repetitive and very skimpy on real information. This morning they say that President Macron of France has conducted an extensive round of negotiations by phone with Putin and Biden perhaps arranging a summit between the two leaders though the White House said nothing is firm on such a meeting. They say one "conversation" between Putin and Macron lasted more than two hours. Listening to the story I thought of a scene in Isaac Asimov's sci-fi classic Foundation. The leaders of the Foundation received an emissary from the Galactic Empire and after extensive talks were convinced that the Empire had their backs in their increasingly threatening relations with a breakaway province. One person had the foresight to record most of those conversations and study them with sophisticated linguistic analysis. He found that the emissary spent a good deal of time spewing a lot of verbiage and didn't really say anything at all. No guarantees, no promises, no action to curb the rebellious province. I suspect that the conversations between Putin and Macron are very similar.

The stampede to remove covid restrictions now includes many Democratic controlled states with spokespeople for the national health agencies cautioning those moves may be premature. I thought in the first summer that covid was likely to become and endemic "flu" that we have to find a way to "live with." Our state hasn't had any restrictions for months but we haven't changed our behavior--we still avoid crowds and carry masks in case we come into an unexpected crowd and the medical offices we have to visit regularly still require them. We just picked up the three free N95 masks at our local big-box store (the local Walgreens didn't have any and the clerk said they wouldn't be getting any.) We are keeping the masks I sewed early in the pandemic because they are all double or triple layered and are a good back up. We have not picked up the free tests. Just for the hell of it I looked up some mortality stats on some other causes of death: flu--12000-52000 per year from 2010 to 2019/gun shot deaths-45,222 in 2020 alone/heart disease-about 700k deaths per year/covid to date--900k. If covid become an endemic flu I expect the yearly death toll would be between 50 and 100k deaths each year. We will see yearly exhortations to get vaccinated to both flu and covid (along with other vaccinations against other diseases like shingles.) Over the 2010-2019 years about 48% of the U.S. population over age 5 received vaccines for flu. That percentage rose to about 51% in 2020.  Just like with flu people who get covid will go to work if they aren't feeling too bad, will stay home if they are not feeling well at all, and go the the hospital if they are really sick. After all we still have no real system of effective sick leave and losing a day or two of wages can be catastrophic for ordinary Americans--a situation I remember all too well in my own life.

This story is a good argument for being cautious about adopting electric vehicles. No matter how the fire originally started (and the investigation has to wait for the fire to go out which won't be soon because the lithium ion batteries in all those luxury cars is now fueling the fire.

February 17

 The weather continues to be strange. A lot of the snow we had a week ago is gone--melted in the 51F of yesterday and washed away with the rain. It is snowing now. We won't complain because the worst of the storm (sleet and freezing rain topped off with inches of snow) passed us by. We still might get as much as 6 inches before tomorrow morning. I checked as many of the garden as I could reach. Several areas are still blocked by snow. The rosemary and Chamomile look very likely to comeback. The mums might also since the main stalks are supple and not brittle like dead ones would be. Beyond that--who knows?

Tom Engelhardt has a personal reminiscence on his Tomdispatch site today that rings several bells with me. At the same age he was when he sneaked into the adult section of his local library hoping the librarians wouldn't chase him away, I was doing much the same. I had already read through the children's section of my branch of our city library but my mother sent me in with a note allowing me to check our any book I the library--from any section. The city built a new, and larger branch closer to my house and I quickly read through it as well. The librarians already knew me and didn't bother me. I read through everything--fiction, science fiction/fantasy, history, biography, and science, whatever I got my hands on. By the time I was in high school I had also gone through the better part of the main city library (all three floors) and was taking a couple of train rides to Chicago where the last stop was just below the Chicago main library. Since my grandmother lived in the city we got me a borrowers card with her address and believe me I made sure every book got back on time and in good condition. Grandma would have blistered my ass if I hadn't done so and Mom would have done the same at home. 

I didn't read Maus when it came out but I did much later working on a never-finished dissertation on comic books or, to use the later phrase, graphic novels. The libraries I frequented in my much younger days wouldn't have had any of "those" on their shelves just as they didn't have series books (Nancy Drew, The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Hardy Boys, etc.) Those books I bought out of my allowance or Mom got them for me. The librarians frowned on those just as the "experts" of the previous century disapproved of the "dime" novels. Those books weren't "real" literature.

 The book banning craze is simply more evidence of the psychotic breakdown of our society or at least a significant minority (I hope) of it. Along with the attempts of legislatures to ban certain subjects from classroom discussion because it might make the poor little students uncomfortable. Of course they aren't worried about the psyches of all students--just white students. 

February 14

Well, we are at half past February. A month and a half into this year and it seems like we are in the same place now that we were on January 1: legislators that can't talk to each other reflecting an electorate the factions of which can't talk to each other, a population so deeply divided on almost every issue that an agreement is impossible (even if the tribes would talk among themselves--which they won't), an economy which some tout as booming while benefits the top tier most while the bottom tiers barely get by. That just barely scratches the surface.

Ah, well--since there isn't a damned thing I can do about the clowns prancing in the national circus I try not to get too irritated. Instead I can be pleased that I am almost finished with my second crocheted lap blanket of the year. I also have made good progress on a crocheted shrug and the embroidered table topper. That is something I can control. I need to get back to hand piecing a small quilted project that I think will be a cover for my sewing machine. And I really do need to get some machine piecing done  but I don't yet know what pattern I want to do. I just know I have that itch growing.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

 We have somewhere above 8 inches of snow that fell yesterday. The streets are somewhat passable--if you can get your car uncovered and the snow piled up around it cleared. We aren't going anywhere so we can do it slowly which is a good thing at our ages. Mom was saying that she would gladly pay some neighborhood lad $20 to do the job but we haven't seen any kids out and about lately.

This post from William Hartung on Tomdispatch doesn't tell me anything new. I have read similar articles for several years now. But I wondered as I read it if there are any people like Joe Manchin complaining about the Pentagon budget and the 3-5% yearly increases the National Defense Strategy Commission proposes. Why do they only complain about the inflationary impact of "social" spending? I guess the "poors" are the only ones who can get lazy and misuse government largess. The military won't do the equivalent of going hunting on the funds from the child tax credit. I am all for fiscal responsibility but I think it should start with our governmental "scared cows."