Category Archives: General

Terrific Tuesday And Terrifying Wednesday

Yesterday, Tuesday the 5th the run-off elections in Georgia for their two Senate seats occurred and Raphael Warnock (D) has been declared the winner over Kelly Loeffler (R) and Jon Ossoff (D) currently has the lead -and considering where the remaining votes lay this lead will likely grow- over David Purdue (R).

Assuming Mr. Ossoff also wins, which seems very likely, it means the Senate will be split exactly 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans… which means that with the Vice President as a tie-breaker, and the Vice President being Kamala Harris, that means that by a slim margin the Democrats will lead the Senate along with the House of Representative and, of course, the Presidency.

Whew!

Today we also have what should be a formality: The Senate and House formally counting the electoral votes and declaring Joe Biden the President of the United States come January 20th.

Of course, this “formality” looks like it won’t be and there are many in the House planning to protest the election and a smaller number of Senators who also plan to protest. They are Trumpistas, no doubt, and while they will huff and puff, there is no realistic way for them to do anything more than delay the inevitable.

So instead of Joe Biden being formally given the Presidency relatively quickly, it may take until later today or earlier tomorrow to be given the power.

If you’ve read my posts, you should be very aware by now that I have little love for Trump and his chaotic governance and am more than happy to see him gone.

I also know that everything won’t magically become good once Trump is gone.

The entire world, thanks to this pandemic, is in a world of hurt and it is going to take several months -maybe even another year- before things get back to “normal”.

But with Democrats in control of all three branches of government and a President who seems to be more engaged with what is needed to be done to deal with this pandemic -versus a President who seems to think the way to deal with it is to ignore it almost completely- then maybe we can make some real headway in bumping up the number of vaccinations given to people.

When the pandemic is finally dealt with, I further suspect we’re going to see a burst of joy and activity the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years.

That day can’t come soon enough.

POSTSCRIPT:

It’s now 2:44 pm, Wednesday the 6th, and things around the Capitol have gotten way out of control, thanks once again to Donald Trump himself.

He incited the mob and now they’re trying to… what exactly? They’re breaching places they shouldn’t be in, supposedly smashing glass and doors… all for a degenerate who will be, I’m certain, viewed as the worst President we’ve ever had.

There will certainly be arrests and I hope many of them. I also hope this doesn’t go beyond this point.

President Trump incited this violence and he needs to be held accountable.

Inevitability we’ll see footage of many of these rioters in court, crying like babies, as their sentences are handed down.

Good riddance to bad trash.

Welcome 2021…!

Woke up to a sunny morning and silence outside.

No cars moving -at least not yet- and all seems pretty calm.

Yesterday I wrote about the end of 2020 and today I’ll try to focus on the future.

In the immediate future, we still have 20 days left of Donald Trump and his “presidency”. I don’t want to keep harping on this but on January 6th the election results will be announced in the Senate/House of Representatives and, according to CNN, there may be as many as 140 Republicans in the House, and at least 1 in the Senate, who will object to the results and slow down, likely only for a few hours, the official results of Joe Biden’s win.

These people, it can’t be emphasized enough, are borderline seditious in their actions. Biden won by a lot, some 7 million more votes and more than enough electoral votes and every single attempt by Trump and his cronies to try to negate this election has been swiftly struck down. If memory serves, only one of their lawsuits, involving a technical issue which didn’t change even a single vote, was “won” by them.

Worse for them, so far the only voting fraud exposed -and its been just a couple of cases- involved people trying to vote for Trump.

Ah well!

Regardless, I suspect the next 20 days will be quite the rollercoaster ride because of this.

Meanwhile in Georgia, we have the run off election for 2 Senate seats. Bluntly, if the Democrats win both seats, then the Democrats will have control over all three branches of power and will then get to push their agenda much more freely.

If they don’t, then Republicans, and Mitch McConnell, will remain in control over the Senate and things will slow down considerably.

We’ll see about that as well.

In near term, its my hope that as soon as Biden does take control over the Presidency he and his team work extra hard on getting the vaccination program going properly.

This is the key to getting back to some kind of “normalcy” and the fact that we’ve had only some 2 million vaccinations in December versus the hoped for 20 million further proves, to my mind, that Trump and his team simply ordered the vaccines in bulk but had no plan as to how to do the actual vaccinations.

Sheesh.

*****

On a personal front, I’ve been working here and there as I can -and it is difficult during these days!- on my new novel which doesn’t have anything to do with the Corrosive Knights series.

This is a standalone story which I will hopefully get finished off, at least the first draft, in the next couple of months. I’m already some 50+ pages into it, of a quarter of the way there going by my usual 200 or so pages (10 point, single spaced), but I do have to work out several elements, including the story’s conclusion. I have some idea of how it will end, mind you, but I’ve always wanted to make sure all my books end strong and I’m not quite there with this book yet.

*****

So here we are, at the start of 2021 hoping for the best.

Let’s see where we are a year from now!

2020 Almost In The Rear View Mirror…

What a year.

Seriously. What a year.

I’ve been around a very long time now and truly, there’s almost nothing that compares to what we’ve been through this year and, for the most part, it revolves around one thing: COVID-19.

This was the year of the pandemic and because of it, also the year where we saw the limits and ineffectiveness of the body politic, especially when its being buffeted by misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general stupidity and laziness.

There have been serious outbreaks throughout the world but there have been places where proper cautions have resulted in control over this virus. Specifically, we’re talking about Japan and New Zealand, where the rate of COVID-19 is almost negligible and the people there -who took the virus very seriously- have managed to get on with their lives while so many other countries -our included- are still wallowing in denial, neglect, and (here’s that word again) stupidity.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of vaccines, but so far there have been a little more than 2 million people who have gotten it and we were promised by the current administration we’d have some 20 million vaccinated by now.

Yeah. We’re only 18 million short.

It’s been noted that if we keep this pace (I doubt we will) it will take 10 years to vaccinate enough people to create the desired herd immunity which will allow us to return to our more normal lives.

Next week we have the certification of Joe Biden’s election and we have one Republican in the Senate, Josh Howley of Missouri, will join the firebrands in the House of Representatives to protest the certification which will lead to some delay but ultimately no results for Trump.

Yet Trump, if nothing else and while damaging the Republic, keeps charging this particular hill. Like the spoiled child he is, he cannot accept that he was defeated in the election (twice if you count the votes he lost by to Hilary Clinton!) and, I very strongly suspect, he realizes that once he’s out of power the legal floodgates open wide against him.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the rest of his life is spend in one litigation after another and his fortune suddenly looking very shaky.

Meanwhile, however, his administration is botching the vaccinations and he’s devoting no energy toward issues regarding COVID or the bombing in Nashville (its rather startling he hasn’t mentioned this at all so far!), instead continuing his infantile and seditious attempts to overturn a legitimate election while playing golf at his resorts.

January 20th can’t come soon enough.

But enough about that.

One great thing about the New Year is that mentally many of us feel like we’re starting fresh, with another 365 days ahead of us to do better for ourselves and others.

I’m optimistic about the New Year, partially because it seems like we may -at least toward the middle of the year- finally make great strides against this virus and perhaps… maybe… hopefully reclaim the life we’ve had before.

It’s been a crappy year but there’s no reason to think things might not get better.

A lot better.

Let’s hope it does and, even more importantly, let’s work to make it so.

Have a Happy New Years!

We’ll see each other again in 2021!

Coronavirus Diaries 25…

…Christmas edition…!

Our family usually does our Christmas gift giving on the 24th but this year, over an abundance of caution, we’re not meeting up in too large a group and doing one visit to family yesterday, with today being the other visit.

In both cases we’re talking about 10 people max and we know what we’ve been doing/where we’ve been and we’ve all been very careful whenever going out so while we probably shouldn’t have the get togethers, we’re reasonably sure we’re all clear…

,,,well…

My sister-in-law, who is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients, called to let us know yesterday that she tested positive for COVID-19. She is usually very careful, wearing masks and washing her hands frequently. Because of the nature of her job, she is also frequently tested for the virus. She took three tests in the past two weeks and the first two were negative but the last one, taken two days ago, came back positive.

She’ll test herself again to verify if indeed it is a positive result and not a false negative. However, she says she has felt a sore throat, which indicates she has something, but is otherwise -thankfully!- so far fine.

Nonetheless, that ended our family visit intended for today. We’ll likely not see that side of the family for at least a week or two, depending on what the subsequent test results indicate and until my sister-in-law tests negative.

Over on my side of the family, my father had an appointment with his doctor earlier in the week and he did a blood test and, wouldn’t you know it, he came back positive for COVID-19 anti-bodies.

Which means he had the virus.

I’ve written before how I suspected several people -including myself- in our family business contracted the virus in mid-late January, early-mid February.

At that point in time, COVID-19 was something which was supposedly only in China’s Wuhan province. It wasn’t yet thought to be in the U.S. and it wasn’t until March, nearly a month later, that we began to realize it was indeed with the United States. And it was in March, the second week or so, that many businesses in our area were forced to shut down to contain a possible spread.

It’s incredibly scary to realize that my father’s illness way back then, which lingered some two weeks, was more than likely COVID-19. Thankfully, he recovered fine. He was the one, of the three or four of us who were sick at the same time, who had it the worst and everyone subsequently recovered. I myself had two or so weeks where I was so exhausted at the end of each day, beyond the normal exhaustion of a busy week, and practically collapsed on my bed afterwards.

Yet I too have had blood test, the last one quite recently, and there has been no indication of COVID-19 anti-bodies within me. Having said that I don’t know if I was indeed checked for that.

Regardless, my wife, who works in the care field, has an appointment to get the COVID-19 vaccine this Saturday. She will be the first person in our family -and extended family- to get it and, unfortunately, neither my daughters nor myself can get it until its available to the general population.

As I’ve noted before, I’ll be getting it as soon as I can, but its a relief that at least one of us will have the first half of the vaccine and therefore, will half the chances of her getting this terrible virus.

I’m hopeful with the incoming administration there will be a stronger push to get the vaccine not only out there, but to have people get it.

If you can, please do so.

Hopefully one day very soon, we’ll return to something of a normal life.

Merry Christmas…!

Now, enjoy this article by Aletha Adu and found on thesun.co.uk…

GHOST OF XMAS PAST: Creepy Santas pictured hunchbacked, skinny, and with the Devil in vintage cards from the 19th Century

Weird stuff and shows how certain concepts -such as Jolly Old St. Nick!- change over time. Not all of them are super creepy, but some certainly are!

Here’s one of my favorites in that respect, from the article…

Saint Nick looks like he’s had a reaaaaallllyyyy long night!

Coronavirus Diaries 24

Another weekend nears its end.

Not just any weekend, but the second to the last weekend of the year 2020. Next weekend will be the last one of December and the following weekend will be the first of 2021.

It shouldn’t come as any big surprise that people will very likely, in looking back at this year, call it one of the very worst ever and the reason is obvious.

COVID-19 likely began sometime in 2019, toward the end of the year, and most likely in China. It spread from there, the first cases believed to have made it to the United States sometime in December of 2019 and by March of 2020 it was clear we had a big problem, worldwide, with this virus.

There were worries, certainly, early in the year. There was plenty of downplaying by the Trump administration of the seriousness of the virus and, even today and even after Trump himself -and many, many in his cabinet- contracted the disease, they continue to try to minimize the situation.

Won’t matter all that much in another month as Trump, and the nightmare of his administration, is out on January 20th.

That’s the other big thing that happened this year: The election.

Despite the many protests issued, Trump clearly lost the election and it wasn’t even close.

While I welcome the end of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Biden administration and am certain it will restore a sense of normalcy that for many of us is desperately needed, let’s be clear: a change in power won’t suddenly make everything “right”.

Meanwhile, in the past couple of weeks we’ve had two COVID-19 vaccines approved, first the one created by Pfizer and on Friday the one created by Moderna. My understanding is that there’s a third vaccine in the pipeline ready to be considered for approval and, further to that, vaccines have already been administered.

However, in a typical Trump dysfunctional pattern, there is word that Pfizer hasn’t been told where to distribute some of the vaccines.

Sheesh.

Still, I’m hopeful each day that passes we’re going to get more and more people being vaccinated and, in time, we’ll finally move on from those who are “high priority” to get the vaccine to regular folk.

I’ve read that when some 70% of the population gets the vaccine, we’ll have effectively reached the level of “herd immunity” and should return to a more normal time, where we no longer have to keep our distance from people and wear masks and wash our hands.

The estimates are that we could get there by late Spring and/or early Summer.

It’s still a ways away, some six months maybe, but at least we have a target and that’s something we haven’t had for way too long.

I’ve written before that I believe I and several people in my family and employees in my family business had COVID-19 way back in late January and/or early February of 2020.

Even if I did, I will get the vaccine as soon as I can.

If indeed things “go back to normal” by the middle or so of next year, I have a strong suspicion the world, as a whole, will erupt.

In a great way.

I suspect we’ll see the economies of many countries -maybe all!- will have a sudden burst. Hopefully, jobs will quickly return and businesses, those who survive these harsh months, will have an incredible rebound.

I hope so.

2020’s been a hell of a bad year.

Maybe 2021 will be far better.

We deserve that much.

Oh, This Isn’t Worrisome… Not At All…

Just stumbled upon this article by Kevin Liptak and Pamela Brown and presented on CNN.com…

Heated Oval Office meeting included talk of special counsel, martial law as Trump advisers clash

Yeah, we’re getting political again, so if that’s not for you, move along.

For everyone else, here’s the story’s first paragraph:

President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump’s aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn’s more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.

For those who aren’t familiar with Michael Flynn, he is a former Army Lieutenant general who advised Trump a brief time before leaving the office. He eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and, before he was sentenced, Trump gave him a controversial pardon. Lately, he’s been stating -alarmingly- that Trump should invoke martial law to retain his presidency and negate the results of the election.

Welp, it seems he brought this idea of martial law craziness into the Oval Office and its alarming as hell that Trump appeared willing to listen to this.

I get this mental image of a wild animal that knows the walls are closing in on him and is looking for any way to remain in power.

Given this article, it worries me what other sorts of craziness he may try from today to January 20th to preserve his power.

The irony is that since the election, Trump no longer seems to be engaged in any sort of actual governing, instead going on twitter and claiming all kinds of conspiracies involving the election and repeating, ad nauseum, that somehow Biden and his campaign “cheated” in its win.

By seven million more votes? And, if the Biden folks did manage such a massive voting cheat, how come they were ineffective in getting rid of the likes of Mitch McConnell?

Still, this article worries me.

January 20th, as I’ve noted before, can’t come soon enough.

The Long Election of Joe Biden

Beware… politics!

Yesterday, December 14th the electoral college formally certified Joe Biden’s win. There was no monkey business -though there were attempts!- and the process moved smoothly.

In the evening, Joe Biden, who has been remarkably restrained to this point, gave a speech following the electoral college win becoming official wherein he pointed out the fact that this was it.

It is.

Remarkably, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, hardly a friend of the United States, formally congratulated Joe Biden on his win.

Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy, the head of Republicans in Congress, and Mitch McConnell, the head of Republicans in the Senate, have yet to do so.

In-freaking-credible.

(POST-SCRIPT: Today, in the morning and the day after the electoral college made it official, Mitch McConnell finally announced and congratulated Joe Biden’s win. I suppose he’ll justify this delay by saying he was waiting for when the electoral college results were “official” but one wonders why he couldn’t do it yesterday, before Vladimir Putin. I guess its one of those things, right? On the plus side, for the most senior member of the Republican Party and head of the Senate to make this declaration all but puts the final nail in Trump’s re-election fantasies)

Further, Bill Barr, the head of the Justice Department and a man who has, in the opinion of many, disgraced himself for his multiple instances of seeming to be a defender of the President rather than a neutral party to justice, was either fired or resigned from his post, effective December 23rd.

Rats abandoning ship?

Given that Joe Biden won’t be officially the President of the United States until January 20th, I have to admit while it pleases me Bill Barr is gone, one worries about who may follow and what monkey business Trump will try to engage in with what will surely be another sycophant.

Given all that’s occurred to date regarding Barr, one wonders if maybe his resignation/firing might have been due to not wanting to do whatever new bizarre things Trump wants.

Trump, many suspect, is terrified of the day he loses power. He knows that when his Presidency is over, the floodgates may well open and he will be facing his many past transgressions, from shady financial dealings to possible tax dodging to rape.

While he can issue pardons -and there are those who expect a flurry of them- its unclear if he can pardon himself. Further to that, some of the legal issues he faces, particularly the financial/tax issues, are coming from New York and would be state charges. Presidents can issue pardons for Federal Charges, but not State Charges.

Needless to say, I think it’ll be an interesting month to come.

I think Trump will keep flailing and I suspect there will be those who will continue to try to help him out.

But come January 20th -which can’t come soon enough in my opinion- all that nonsense stops.

Weird Stuff…!

Sometimes you stumble upon an article and it just… wow.

Over at i09.gizmodo.com, we have this article by Beth Elderkin:

The Mystery of Illinois’ Short-Lived Cookie Monster Mural

The mural in question:

An Artist Received A Lucrative Commission To Paint A Soviet Mural Of Cookie  Monster. The Patron Wasn't The Building Owner. - The Handbuilt City

Basically, what we have here is a joke mural, showing the Cookie Monster as being some kind of hero to the Soviet Union. A funny, pretty well done mural…

…but…

Read the article, I implore you! I’ll spoil a little of it below but truly you should read the article to get the full story.

Anyway, someone who claimed to own the building the mural was painted on contacted an artist and commissioned this mural. The artist was paid but told to paint the mural quickly which, after they planned it out, they did. This was NOT an easy task. The mural was large and required three people to paint it.

Thing is, once the mural was done, the REAL owner of the building contacted the artist, furious that he had painted on his building and threatening to sue, or worse, call the police for vandalism!

The artist explained what happened and offered to paint over the mural for free, but the owner of the building, apparently not wanting any more to do with the artist, did so himself.

The mural is gone, but clearly this was some very elaborate-and expensive!- practical joke done on the owner of the building.

As for who actually hired the artist, and why choose this particular theme/picture, I hope one day we find out!

First Appearance of Covid-19 in US… December of 2019?

Over at The Wall Street Journal, Betsy McKay offers this intriguing article:

Covid-19 Likely in U.S. in Mid-December 2019, CDC Scientists Report

The bottom line of the article is that examination of blood samples collected from December of 2019 show that the virus was already in the U.S. a few weeks before China identified the disease and about a month before the first “official” case was found in our country.

Way, way back in late March of 2020, when the lockdowns were first starting and everyone was shutting down, I wrote about how I thought maybe I, and several people around me, might have contracted the Coronavirus in early/mid January and into early February. (You can read my entry about that here)

Mind you, there was no thought at that time the Covid-19 was in the U.S., yet as I noted in my post above, our family business was very busy at the time and we were in contact with people from quite literally all over the world. There was also a little thing called the Super Bowl which happened on February 2nd in Miami, and which caused our area to fill up with many people… also from all parts of the world.

So back then, my father and several people we knew around us got quite sick and the illness lasted a long time, some two weeks or more, before they kicked it out of their systems. In later January and into early February I too caught something and I wasn’t sure what. I had my flu shots in October of 2019 and it seemed unlikely I caught the flu.

However, I caught something. I felt incredibly weak/exhausted at the end of workdays and, especially, work weeks. I literally felt I needed to collapse in bed and rest.

Luckily, my wife didn’t catch it and, eventually, whatever I had left my system.

Afterwards, I couldn’t help but think maybe those around me and I caught the Coronavirus in the very early -and for many unknown- days of its spread. Given the Wall Street Journal article, it certainly is possible.

It’s scary to think we may have had a potentially fatal disease at a time when no one thought it was spreading in the U.S. and, had any of us gotten really sick, in those very early days of the virus treatment would have been far from well thought out.

If indeed it was COVID-19 we had, we were lucky and made it through. Happily, everyone who caught whatever it was is back to normal.

Still, the idea the people around me and I could have been exposed to Coronavirus before it became known is a chilling thought indeed.