March 3

Another sunny day. Cold mornings but mid 40s and low 50s mid day. The patio is clear enough for me to get the trash tote out for pickup. After about a month the tote was quite heavy and it took a bit of effort to get the container free of the ice underneath. I do look forward to  Spring and planting things.

President Biden announced the joint effort between Merck and J&J to produce the J&J one shot vaccine. And that he thinks we will have enough of all vaccines to immunize every adult in the country. Almost on cue several governors (Texas and Mississippi for example) have decided that we don't have to mask, distance or keep businesses to limited crowds. What is scary is Texas has all five of the variants epidemiologist are most worried about and they still have a high positivity rate. Well, if things go bad and their COVID numbers go up, they have six weeks to think up a way to evade responsibility.

March 4

Sunny and colder today but still not bad for early March. We went out for a brief shopping trip to get what wasn't on the shelf when we shopped earlier in the week. They are still having difficulty keeping some items in stock because of manufacturers' delays. These last two years are the first time I have seen that though about 10 years ago I started noticing that some of the stores weren't filling their shelves to the max. I was an inventory counter a couple of times in my varied work life and remember how it used to be with product so tightly packed one could hardly get an accurate count. I remember when not finding what I wanted would put me out of sorts but that has changed. We deal with a number of smaller shops whose supply chains have been strained even before the pandemic and with the pandemic we simply have become used to putting the items on the list for the next trip. We have also gotten in the habit of buying multiples when we find certain items or find it on a good sale. We found packages of pork chops and pork loin roasts on a two-for-one sale and scarfed up a couple of each.

William Astore has another good piece on Tomdispatch.com on the problem the military has with its pricey high tech weapons systems which never nowadays seem to work as planned (or at all in some cases.) I won't comment further since I have frequently linked to similar posts over the last dozen or so years. But last night several commentators on the news/talk shows had high praise for one aspect of our military which has performed fantastically: the mass vaccination sites set up in cooperation between the Federal government and the States. A couple of the reporters were finally able to line up for their shots, went to one of those sites and found it fast, efficient and convenient. One of the pundits noted whereas our governments (at all levels) have starved public health networks (passing off most of that work to for-profit corporations which quickly became over burdened) we have generously funded the military. Note the last so-called budget ran something like $750 BILLION. It makes me wonder what we might have if we invested a part of that money into public education, public health, public roads, public utilities.