December 21--Happy Winter Solstice

--though it doesn't feel like winter. We still haven't had any real snow--some flurries that didn't stick. And the temperatures are between 15 and 20 degrees (F) above normal. 

I just saw the news that the Omicron variant has now become the dominant variant in the U.S.--in only 2 weeks. And the first death related to Omicron in the U.S. I read this morning that my state has identified its first case 2 days ago. A number of the talking heads sounded almost despairing while commenting that we seem to be back where we were a year ago--before we had vaccines and before new treatments proved effective. Well, some of the more thoughtful commentators have mentioned those facts. And at our level we know very well that this is not then. Last year we read about the pandemic but it hadn't really hit us. Our shut downs were't as severe as some I read about. We could still go out and get what was needed. I made our own masks--the first six were two layer but all the next ones were triple layer as are the ones I am sewing now. I don't think we will be putting masks aside soon.

But over the last year the pandemic has come closer. My brother, his son and a grandson, and a niece in another branch of the family have all had COVID (ages range from about 12 to 70). None died. The woman who works at the little farm store associated with out small local dairy told us that she is hearing from a lot of their customers that this has already been a bad season and not just for COVID. Many have had serious cold and flu that have hit hard. Mom just got out of the hospital after a five day stay getting treated for viral bronchitis. Not COVID--they tested. I think I mentioned a statistic I saw that the death rate for a group of "respiratory" infections (COVID, flu, and colds) is, nationwide, 17.5%.

Listening to the accounts over the Manchin public F-you over the BBB talks--and make no mistake that is exactly what he did--I have several thoughts. First is recognizing how utterly fractured and, worse, infantile our politicks have become. Manchin had a reasonable concern that the White House statement which included his name (and his alone) was justified. Reports of death threats and harassment of politicians come almost daily and reveals the infantile and emotionally inflamed environment we are living with. But deep sizing the bill he and others had worked on, negotiated on, for months strikes me as another infantile move. And then there is the account which said that Manchin had expressed misgiving about those poor recipients of the child tax credit using the funds for drugs or some of his West Virginians misusing their family leave to "go hunting." OMG--shades of Hillary talking about "deplorables" and Obama talking about those desperately clinging to "God and guns." If true, Manchin indulged in a spate of sanctimonious moralizing. Another thought: so many of those both politicians, voters, and other Republican allies express a "concern" over the way the measures in BBB would change American culture and society. Unfortunately, those same people fail to recognize that our culture and society have changed drastically over the last century thanks to economic changes and it isn't going to go back to the 1950s (or 1930s) any time soon.