Dying for the Dow

Maya taking a break from homeschool All the Maya photos are from Naomi

on a sunny day

making slime on the stoop

finally a sign of spring

Of all the stupid things that come out of Republican mouths, none has been so inane as what the Lt. governor of Texas said recently that the elderly should be willing to die if they love their grandkids ensuring said grandkids a healthy economy. He is assuming that businesses have shut down only to protect the elderly from the corona virus and that only the elderly actually die from it. It vaguely reminds me of the Facebook scam on many posts "if you support people with cancer (substitute Autism, Down's syndrome..)you will share this post with all your friends (while we capture all their names). If you don't you are clearly a heartless bitch."

I guess I am a heartless bitch even though I did have cancer and I give support (money) to various groups that help them.

And no, I am not willing to kill myself so my grandkids will take pride in a healthy stockmarket, if they even know what that means. 

It is not clear if I am to actively kill myself or just expose myself to the virus dining in restaurants, travelling, spending money so that I would catch it and then be turned away at the hospital when I could no longer breathe on my own. Or may be government agents will just come to gun me down.

And what is elderly? Recently a columnist who is still a world class athlete at 63 offered to fly across the country to visit her grandkids(this was a few weeks ago before the self-isolation edicts) and was surprised when her adult kids said no because she is elderly and at great risk for the virus.  She was taken back as she definitely didn't see herself that way being able to outperform most young people.  I am no world class athlete but I suspect even as slow as I have gotten, I could still outperform most young people.

But the biggest fallacy the lt. governor makes is assuming that our hospitals are only tied up with old people.

Michigan has gone from only 1 case to 2400 (as of yesterday) cases in just 2 weeks.The Detroit Metro area hospitals are filled to capacity (still room in our neighboring county). Meanwhile our southern neighbor, Ohio, which started off with more victims and has a higher population than Michigan, now has only a third as many victims. Are we just testing more? Could be. But some say the biggest difference is that we had gone ahead with our primary two weeks ago. True the elderly (including me) could use mail-in ballots but up to election day, it wasn't clear which candidates were left so I voted in person. And I admit, I found the few masked people and the lady who insisted on putting gloves on to open the door (but used bare hands for the communal pens) over the top. At the time I was lead to believe we had only one person in the entire state who didn't even live near me. How was I to get sick? If only we had an operational CDC and tests to have better tracked this beast..  But you know what happened to that and he doesn't feel the least bit responsible.

BLACK SWAN VERSUS GRAY RHINO

Recently I heard the virus described as a 'black swan' meaning totally unexpected with even more unexpected consequences. Now I would have thought of a black swan as the evil side of the Odette/Odile battle from the Swan Lake Ballet (cue the black feathers sprouting from Natalie Portman's back)  But it turns out it was a Roman poet Juvenal 900 years ago writing how hard it is to find a woman with suitable virtues to marry, a 'rara avis' (in crossword puzzle world, this term comes up a lot) or a black swan, a creature not thought to exist such as a unicorn.

At the end of the 17th centure, a Dutch explorer (whose name looks like it is pronounced as if you were expelling corona viruses ) encountered them in Australia where they were common. I have seen some of their descendants at a bird farm near my former house.

But others say the situation is more like a gray rhino coming at you. Predictable with deadly consequences unless evasive techniques are quickly practiced. Not a whole lot of rhinos out there, but if one happens to be barreling down on you, you know what to do.

Monday night, we got the social distancing order. Fortunately my runs and bike rides are not in violation especially as we live out in the country though I am encountering much more dog walkers. And they actually seem happy to see me. We also can take food out of restaurants which we might try tonight. Other than seeing my friends and family much much less, not a lot has changed.

Funny corona postings:  The Corona sutra: an illustrated guide to sexual positions that include social distancing. What does Corona and Romeo and Juliet have in common? One is a Verona crisis and the other is a Corona virus. And finally from my German speaking page: here is the US we stockpile toilet paper and handwipes, in Germany it is sausage and cheese:

IT IS CLEARLY A WURST KASE SCENARIO