Is the Virus Crunch Over With?

May fourth 1970 was the date of the Kent State shootings in Ohio and that was fifty years ago.  Yesterday May 3^rd was Valerie Shoffner’s birthday.  The significance of here is something my long-time blog readers know.   This is the year of the non campaign.   It’s like politics ceased to exist after March tenth.  It’s an eery thing.  We only know Joe Biden now for the sexual charges laid against him.  Sanders has disappeared completely.  The Democratic convention is August 17^th.   They moved it once from July; I hope they don’t cancel it entirely.  The LA school district says they are going to stick with their August 18^th starting date.  That’s early enough and I hope and pray the virus is over by then.  The Los Angeles county fair has still not been canceled as the OC fair was.   The Boston marathon is still scheduled for September.  I know there are other rock concerts that were rescheduled to a hopefully “safe” October.   But now they are saying that everything will operate at no more than half normal crowd density.  France and Italy are opening up their countries.  Everybody seems to think “It’s time”. 

May 4, 2020 is the grand reopening day of the nation with many states picking to lift the shackles of regulations.   Even though they tell us that death and hospitalization rates are continuing to rise in the agrigate.   I think they are giggling the figues because I thought we had topped off the week of April 13^th through 17^th and have been in  downtrend ever since.  Protestors still abound all over the country here in California and elsewhere.  Around this place Glen hasn’t uttered a peep about any liberation day when we can go outside the gates.  Of course there is a veritable soap opera of events the past few days.  But it would be nice if you could visit your own parents who are sick in the hospital and be spared the indignity of dying all alone.  It goes without question that the value of human to human contact is key to a healing.  Of course even though so many restaurants and barbershops and other businesses are open they in most cases are still practicing social distancing.  But when they are again flying commercial airlines the middle seat may well be a thing of the past.  Various city councils including Dana Point and Huntington Beach are challenging Governor Newson’s anti beach edict in court. 

May the Fourth Be With You -  Yesterday 'The Force" was not with me 

Reopening America

The governor is telling us to hunker down.   They are continuing to liberalize things on the south Atlantic coast like Georgia and the Carolinas opening up beauty salons and tatoo parlors.  They are opening up the beach in San Clemente and things were already opened up in Ventura.  You know about all of the south Atlantic beaches that have been opened up like in Jacksonville, Fla.  But the virus figures are running high this week because of a backlog in test results they are releasing.  In San Bernardino County they are opening up Mount Baldy for tourists before the snow all melts.  Yesterday was really the start of the hot weather and it remained warm up into the evening.  Tomorrow will be the warmest days with temperatures ranging from 95 to 98 over a wide-spread area. 

I have Randy Rhodes on right now.  Today we are all hot on ultraviolet C radiation and also inhaling or injecting bleach and songs about ingesting Comet.  Now the belief among the far right that if you take disinfectant cleaners internally this will protect you from the virus.  Half the country is going to be open before the April 30^th date even rolls around.  We in California will appear really “retarded” on our wanting to resume normal economic activity.  They should run tests to see is sunlight really does weaken or kill the virus and if it does, to tell people to get out in the fresh air and sunshine.  

Another four million people put in claims for unemployment on Thursday bringing the total to 26 million dollars.  There is a suggestion that state governments be allowed to declare bankruptsy.  Do you know what that would do to the municipal bond markets?   There would be economic chaos and government as we know it would collapse.  Mitch Mc Connel says blue states are the takers because they have more of the Corona virus than do the red states.  But it’s the red states like Kentucky that get back more from the federal government than they put in with taxes.  This is because tax rates in red states are low and in blue states they are high.  This makes the blue states much more self sufficient.   And there is politics involved too.  Trump and Mc Connel want to propagate the lie that low taxes equals wealth.

The liberal media is hyping us with all this talk about how blue the sky is now and how the rivers in Venice run clear now and you can see all of this fish swimming and how happy all of the animals are in Yellowstone national park now that there are no humans.   We are told the world has shut down but when I was out on Tuesday this wasn't at all the case.  (Tuesday April 21st)  I’m fuzzy what I did after this.  I think I checked in with the front room again.  Oh.  April was there with Joselyn and she said she would definitely take me to the bank today and it would be after she took James and Ken Brown.  I went down at 11:30 for lunch.  We had Swedish meat balls with gravy and a small amount of mash potatoes and vegetables.  I don’t remember the dessert.  Joe was playing JACK radio but first I had Gary and Shannon on.  I was anxious not to miss April.  She didn’t even take James and Ken to the bank till one thirty and Chris told me that.  I was beginning to have anxieties about missing the whole thing.  At two I went down and they were getting ready to start up a Bible Study with Brother Bart but they were having problems with the hook-up.  When they got it working the sound was loud and tinny.  The D J I fell 630 points today.  Today’s Bible study topic was David and Bathsheba but I left after the opening hymn.  I went outside and Chris told me that April had just pulled through the gate.  I saw her and ambled down that way greeting them as James was getting out of the van.  I told April I was ready to go to the bank.  We left and I was glad to get out of the gates.  I noticed the streets weren’t nearly as deserted as advertised on TV.  Some parking lots were full north of La Palma.  We parked right by the machine and I went there with my card.  But I had all sorts of troubles with my card and the forty dollars never came out.  I asked the guy at the next booth if he could resolve the problem but he just said the machine didn’t give me cash.  I went to his machine and tried that but my finger brushed by the 400 key and it showed up on the receipt but I got a message saying they were having technical difficulties.  I went into the bank and soon got a teller who was ready for me.  She was nice but I was disorganized.  She gave me the forty dollars I asked for and gave me a statement with my balance.  It was $101.00 roughly.  Then we made our way home via Beach the same way Terry goes and she dropped me off.

Joe was playing the jazz station and I remarked how the station comes in really clear with Joe’s radio and it doesn’t with mine.  I went to dinner at four thirty.  We had a chef’s salad with lots of ham and cheese and hard boiled eggs and olives.  There were a few tomatoes and short on dressing.  We had that tropical fruit mix for dessert.  Right now Mayor Garsetti is starting his address.   I must say the media gives you a certain impression that it not accurate.  People are out and about.   The dark streak is not noticeable outside of this file except maybe on opening just a trace. 

Growing Nationwide Protests

There were growing protests all over the country including Denver and right here in LA yesterday.  The natives are getting restless.  They opened the beaches in Jacksonville and are thinking of opening them in Georgia and in South Carolina.   People are demanding churches be reopened.  The health authorities are concerned that the country will be reopened too early and we will get a second spike in the pandemic.   They had a couple of mass shootings in the news not virus related.   It was almost a relief to hear a non-virus related story.  I’m just hoping to get out to the bank this week.  I tried to call and get my account status yesterday but after confirming I’m not Spanish there was a break and a voice said that the Chase site was down and to call during business hours, at least I think that was the message.

.  Mike Pence was on Meet the Press along with the Democratic governor of Michigan and the Republican governor of Ohio on this issue of relaxing the rules.  In Ventura county they have opened up the beaches though it’s heavily patrolled by the cops to insure no crowding.  The parking lots and the restrooms remained closed.  Some parks are open.  President Trump wants to “liberate” the states of Michigan, Minisota, and Virginia by encouraging the protests that were going on in those states.  Many of the things Mike Pence said didn’t make sense but I’m not going to argue with him.  I went out for my next to the last cigarette.  I was again fighting drowsiness toward nine o clock.

One of these days I'm going to do a virus free blogpost where I talk about something entirely non virus related like politics.  That and the NBA playoffs are the things we're supposed to be talking about now.  The NBA playoffs would have stared last weekend if these were normal times.   In politics the beginning of the eng came about the start of March when five candidates,  Tom Stire,  Mike Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren,  Budagieg and Amy Clovichar all withdrew within a week of each other pretty much ending the race for President.  There seemed less a conspiracy to give it to Joe Biden than there was just to "end" the primary season alltogether. 

.  This is Sunday April 19, 2020 and the Mc Cartney album was released Friday April tenth and not today as Chris Carter stated.  This morning I got up at a quarter after four and took a shower partially because this room was cold but the window was only cracked open a little and not a lot.  I wanted coffee.  I got my chance an hour or so later when I was down for my next cigarette.  Chris invited me up to Rose’s room to get my own spoonful of instant coffee from a jar that was pretty low.  Eventually I turned on KNX radio.  I had that on till nearly breakfast.  I went down at five to seven and looked around the dining room and already the room was filled.  I went in at seven thirty.  I got my corn flakes and then two pieces of French toast and syrup and butter and then I got my coffee.  

The God of Chance

This is Thursday April 9, 2020 after dinner.  The latest news is that California’s peak will not be as high as New York, which still has a higher per capita rate of infection.  The theory now is that California developed a herd immunity last fall when people came in from China and California had an unusually early flu season.  I remember that.  The death rate per testing had continued to rise and is now at 2.8% which us up from a flat two percent a couple weeks back.  The death rate for the country is now sixteen thousand.  Some national official has revised their predicted peak from well over a hundred thousand now down to sixty thousand.  Masks will now be required in Orange county.  ALL parks will be closed on Easter.  Weather wise it’s been raining all day and that will help keep people in.  It’s been raining a lot the past three weeks and we haven’t seen that much of the sun.  At Dallas Rains’ house it peaked out at 49 degrees, which for April is really something.  I haven’t seen the cat at all yesterday or today.  I presume some party has taken her in to have her kittens, perhaps one of the restaurants behind us.  Now they say that fishing season is not canceled, but only delayed here. 

This is Wednesday April 8, 2020.  Let’s get to the important news.  The cat has had her kittens.  Nancy noticed it Monday after dinner.  Yesterday morning Rose confirmed it.  The only time I saw the cat yesterday was when she was darting across the pavement to get out of the rain.  Nancy says she’s been jumping over the fence by the bakery.  She obviously had her kittens there.  But we won’t see them because we can’t get out of here till April 30^th.  And it’s unlikely she will bring them over here.  I haven’t seen the cat at all today.  The last news of the past two days is that masks are mandentory everywhere now and employers have to pay for them if the employee doesn’t have one.  But they stress you can make your own.  This morning we learned that the federal government was giving President Trump intelligence reports on the Corona virus as early as late November of last year and have continued to update him.  The president loves to lie and say he hit from out of the blue and nobody saw it coming.  Today’s death rates are the highest ever but this is to be expected.  However rates in New York have actually declined.  That University of Washington study said that the peak virus attack would be April 17^th and that isn’t far off.  Another report even said April 12^th.   Now they are instituting one way lanes in grocery stores and are also limiting admittance to stores.  These measures will help. 

Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race so remember this date.  I tried to look up the results of the Wisconsin primary but they said the vote results were being held for a week by court order.  (?) Sanders says he can’t in good conscience continue the race but his name will continue to be on the ballot.   He wants to keep his deligates so that he can influence the party platform.  So he isn’t entirely out of the race.  Joe Biden is the heir designate.  That should make it real easy for him if anyone wants to start campaigning again.  In other news Linda Trip had died at age seventy.  I didn’t know she was so old back in 1998.  She was already in her late forties.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson is making a slow improvement in his health, and never needed that ventilator.  We continue to pray for his recovery. 

As you know there is a popular show about the Multi-verse.  Back in March o 2018 we were talking a lot about the creation of multiple universes and lateral time.  But the unspoken mental thought we had was one of Chance.  Probability.  God can jigger the probabilities to "make" things happen in any universe he wants them to happen in.  So when the creationists talk about low chance and probabilities they are walking into a trap.  Because God is the god of Chance.   Certain things can jigger probabilities other than "God".   For instance not obeying a direct order from God you know came from God can do it.  There are fleeces described in the story of Gidian.   To be fair these should be fleeces with LESS than a fifty percent chance of happening on their own.  Such a fleece occurred to me last Saturday.   I bet God I couldn't remember the name of Leo Laport's daughter even though I knew it for sixteen years.  I knew his son was named Henry.   The period elapsed where I had that mental block and I cashed in on it.  I asked God to as far as physically possible to shorten the time of the reign of this virus and make it go away.  I won that fleece.  And this week we have seen a turn-around in the virus plague figures.  Another way the future can be affected is by superstitions and also witch's spells and incantations.  These "make things happen" because they are actions that "aren't supposed to happen" and because they did happen they engender other things which weren't supposed to happen.   This is part of the theory behind the I Ching and various divinations.  Getting back to March of  2018 we call it a fifth dimensional shift.  These may occur all the time but they really seem strange and I can't prove it.  It raises other questions if they Do occur.  Of course we have had a lot of rain in the past three weeks around here and it's raining this morning.  I haven't yet prayed for the rain to go away.  We are some twenty degrees below our normal highs.  On another subject you're all interested in, I saw the cat jump the fence and she came over here.  Her fur was soaking wet from the rain and I hoped someone would get a towel.  She was meowing her head off for food or whatever. 

Are We Near the Peak of the Virus Attack?

This is Palm’s Sunday April 5, 2020 and the sun is trying to come out or the first time today.  We woke to rain and it rained at a pretty good pace before breakfast.  Once it slowed to a trickly.  It rained less  after breakfast.  The thing is the weather predictors are saying that the major rain won’t arrive till later today.  Pilgrims in Jerusalem weren’t able to retrace the steps Jesus Christ took on Palm’s Sunday because Israel has closed down church services.  However they did ring bells.  Catholics are delivering mass to an empty church because everyone is viewing on-line.   Borris Johnson is being  hospitalized after ten days of having the Corona virus because the governmental authorities are worried about his health.  On Friday they said that you pretty much had to wear masks  if you were going to venture out in public, but at the same time the president said he personally won’t wear a mask and stresses that the move is voluntary.  This is all old news except to my blog readers because I’m so far behind in my blogging.  The question now is, “Is the peak anywhere in sight?”  There is growing evidence that the peak is in sight.  Growth rates of the virus have slowed from 25% or higher to ten or twelve percent. Hopefully next week we will see another ten percent drop in growth rate and the increase will be two percent.  And the weak after that should feature an eight percent drop.  That would be something.  But it all depends on how much of a backlog there is in testing.  But the president has stated that this will be the worst week where there will be “a lot of death”.  The peak will probably come about Income Tax paying time, though I’m not sure if that date still holds or not.  They showed the disease rate for Italy.  What I noticed is that there are multiple spikes in the curve.  The highest point occurred on March 21^st but several other lesser spikes have occurred since then.  President Trump doesn’t want any delays in the NFL season and I see no reason why there should be one since that season does not get underway till mid August.  But our esteemed governor insists that this is not enough time to insure that the virus spread has been sufficiently controlled.

(Friday) Yesterday they moved back the Democratic convention from July to August.  I hope that satisfies everybody.  Wisconsin is going ahead with their primary next Tuesday, and that’s a good thing.  It gives the feeling of getting back to normal.  Now everyone is saying to wear a homemade mask when you go out in public.  But don’t wear the surgical mask the medical workers wear because they’re in short supply.   There seems to be some flattening of the new exposure statistics at least in California.  But the rest of the country is high.  There are still ten or so state governors that haven’t shut down their state yet.  Democrats are starting to say that the hundred to two hundred thousand lives are on President Trump’s hands.  But the thing is the normal death rate for a flu winter is about 24,000 and we still aren’t anywhere close to that, but I know with the growth rates we will surpass that within the week.  When there is some exchange around here of property from someone on the outside a professional person here has to meet them and be wearing gloves.  There was a rumor a week ago that the NBA would start again playing games in mid May but without an audience.  Even that would be an improvement. 

(Saturday) I borrowed two cigarettes from Tao.  He lectured me about Jesus and showed me his gold cross with I guess the Virgin Mary on it.  I was going to blog today but I don’t have enough material.   Jesus, just like Martin Luther King,  was cut off in the prime of life and could have accomplishes so much more.  You aren’t supposed to think about that. 

On a personal level we in this board and care home have been under the most severe of restrictions the past three weeks where you can't even walk to the local liquor store to get coffee.  In Laguna Woods old people were worried that a hotel would be taken over by sick people spreading their virus.  But we are assured these people are quarantined.  They can't even walk a few yards outside their restrictions.  This is the governor's doing.  I see no reason to exagurate the severity of this pandemic.  We know numbers will be high the next two weeks.  But I don't see why in May you can't reopen parks and trails and beaches, or allow swimming parties with neighbors you know, and the like.  After all one big reason why flu rates drop in the spring is because people are outdoor more.  Barbecuing and gardening are good hobbies.  I think we can agree that the NBA and the NHL seasons are pretty much "toast" for this year, but I don't see why we can't have various tennis matches or the tour de France and the All Stats in baseball and other events that we have in the summer time.  We all don't need to be as negative as Governor Newsen.  I didn't vote for him last time and I sure as heck am not voting for him the next time he comes up for election.  Utah doesn't have a blanket "stay at home" order and they're doing OK so far.  We'll see what happens in the next few weeks.  

Math is a Stern Taskmaster

The name of this file is “uncertainty” but things are taking shape now once one takes a look at the math behind the COVID 19 virus rise in incidence.  Yesterday we had three thousand deaths.  If the virus doubles every four days that would mean it was at least sixteen times as high in sixteen days or just past mid month.  There was a 22% rise in incidence of the virus and a 23% rise in deaths in LA county.  But you have to figure in compounding, which increases the “yield”.   But though you are now at 48,000 deaths you can’t assume a mirror image on the other side of the spike, if it is even a spike and not a rounded curve.  That would bring it to at least 96 thousand and add in compounding and the uncertainty factor not knowing when the peak even is.  It may well be longer than sixteen days.  That’s kind of a pipe dream.  So you may well be at double the death of the Viet Nam war, which we always think of as a lot.   The experts said it could be anywhere between a hundred and 240 thousand, and  that upper figure is easily reachable if the peak doesn’t develop till the end of the month.   It’s something to think about.

It's 3:25 and Augustine is still working in the next room after a break putting in new molding or something.   I just watched yesterday’s Days of our Lives episode.   Anna poked Steve’s bionic eye out with her stiletto shoe heel.  Now he’s being rolled into the emergency room.   Chad snapped out of it when he had too many guns aimed at him, and Marlena was brought back from the land of the zombies by John’s love.   Before this they had the LA County report and questions.  There will be no school for the rest of the semester.  People are being wired for internet.   I saw the last portion of today’s DL episode saying that Nicole now knew Zander to be a fraud,  and she has something to tell Eric.  We can guess the rest, I think.   We had sweet and sour pork with pineapple and sauce with brown rice and broccoli.  I was given a second portion in a bowl.  I got coffee.   I sat near the front.  We had to wait a long time and then I followed Larry in.   We haven’t thought about the campaign in a couple weeks.  I hope Sanders doesn’t throw in the towel.  I hope he’s up and running in Wisconsin.  I can’t imagine an institution like the Wisconsin primary would just be canceled.   It would seem that Sanders may rise in the opinion polls now that people see how a medical crisis can take over a whole nation.   Rates should rise in the red states because of their lax policies.  

(a while back) Yesterday Paul called up about eleven.  As I recall I turned off the KFI news.  Paul called just to see how I was.  It dawned on me I wasn’t coughing.  I told him about the continuing quarantine situation around here, and that I’m not sure whether it’s this Monday or the following Monday we get sprung from lock-down.   I talked to him for a half hour.  Paul now has to go back to work to get paid.  They gave him his own office where he gets to work with an Excel spreadsheet.  I said he was moving up in the world.   I went to lunch after this.

(last Saturday) Gene’s room is 213 of course.  That was a typo.   Two days ago the word was that New Orleans is the next major outbreak city because Mardi Gras was held in that city.   Yesterday late morning I turned off the computer and turned on Gary and Shannon before lunch.  We had teriyaki beef with rice and squash.  After this I took two chewable vitamins and noticed that something is hurting on my upper left side.  Yesterday I had two Oreos and an iced tea for afternoon snacks.  Actually there was a Bible study in progress at two and I wandered in when I heard the recoring of Brother Bart.  They had a new speaker that flashes a light at the bottom and also had another light thing around the speaker that changes color every few seconds.  Bart covered three parables on the subject of repentence.  The first was the prodigal son.  The second one was on the pharmacy and the tax collector.  The third one was I forget.  But then he went into a rerun he had last time and I left.  The third was on the rich man and Lazarus and in this case of was repentance too late.  Then I watched some General Hospital. 

A Slightly Different Location

(Unedited)

This is Friday March 27, 2020 after dinner and I did not type yesterday.  You know the Corona virus came from bats in China.  You know about the major shortage of gloves and masks and gowns and coveralls and ventelators they’ve been talking about the past week.  President Trump came on the air today preempting General Hospital to talk about this Korean war rule that Truman got passed which compels private corporations to switch manufacturing to needed items.  Some on the right call this a governmental ceisure of corporate assets.  Well General Motors is now forced by the President to manufacture ventelators because Trump didn’t like their attitude.  If Biden were president you know Trump would be attacking him.  We have all settled down into a routine of restricted living.  But what I didn’t know till yesterday was that Governor Newsen issued an executive order a week ago Monday of a “Lock-down” of board and care facilities or at least this place was on the list.  However I’ve been unable to find this in Google.  Otherwise there were further restrictions by LA county and the entire state closing down the rest of the beaches.  Parking lot closures are not enough.  Now they are closing the restrooms and padlocking the bike paths and locking the restrooms.  Also tennis courts are closed.  There are still a few parks that are open but you know the trails are all closet.  Today they had the LA county report a half hour early on Gary and Shannon just after noon.  But don’t get your hopes up.  Not ten minutes into Days of our Lives they preempted again to talk about that hospital ship Mercy, that is pulling into LA Harbor.  The United States has surpassed Italy in number of deaths, which is now in excess of a hundred thousand.  This was the news yesterday.  LA county appears to be doubling in less than a week, and one week from now we will catch up to New York on a per capita basis.  The news is grim everywhere you turn.  The ban on us going out extends three weeks and not two, as I thought I heard Glen say.  That’s April sixth.  I was thinking they should have money draw on the first so that people who just received their checks can convert them into cash.  But I also thought I heard Glen say a week ago Monday that one of the ”essential” trips in addition to doctor’s appointments was going to the bank.   Prince Charles now had Corona virus as does prime minister Borris Johnson.  That’s quite an admission for a governmental power.  Britain is a little behind the learning curve in terms of their restrictions.  President Trump today signed that two trillion dollar relief bill you’ve all been anticipating.  They continue to promise that the checks will go in the mail on April 6^th but I heard rumors yesterday that it wouldn’t occur till “around may first”.  For some people their income estimate will be from their 2018 income tax returns.   Lastly I would like to refer to God.  We should give thanks in all things and thank him for preserving us through all of our crises.  Keep in mind with God in control of everything things could logically always get worse.   Maybe I didn’t phrase that right but you know what I mean.  We’re to assume things COULD get worse without the sovereign hand of God.  Make no mistake; God is the source of everything.  I guess you couldsay that “God” has admitted this to me personally.  I don’t consider it a matter for debate. 

I am typing from a new location by the wall where my bed was.  They moved the beds because the bed bugs have further to crawl from the neighboring walls to invade the mattress.  I’ll have more on this later.  There was a problem with what I thought was a bad outlet for the radio including the clock.  But Augustine pointed out that the outlet was controlled by a switch I never paid attention to.  But there was another problem.  The switch was programmed to shut the power off after a half hour or so if there is no movement in the room.  If you get up at night and want to see the clock the screen is dark.  Augustine then said I could plug it into the computer extension power surge thing.  That couldn’t be done because some plugs are space hogs and you can’t use all the plugs.  Then I got the extension cord out of that bag in the closet I remembered seeing a while back.  Fortunately that worked.  This morning I had on Democracy Now at a quarter after five.  It was about an Indian woman who didn’t look Indian, and that’s because she wasn’t’ she was Samali.  Joe showed interest.  But the good news is I can now see the screen from my bed.  Also the headphones make sense now because the cord reaches that far.  I now keep my coffee cup on the desk rather than on the floor, which proves risky now. 

Wednesday and Thursday evenings they had a thing on Catalina plants, and once again the guy talked about the positive input of man.  There was no medication line either night.  Last night I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Both nights it was Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune but of course I was fighting drowsiness on “Wheel” both nights.  Wednesday night I fell asleep and woke after eight thirty and there was some strange TV program on so I went to bed early.  Last night I had Law and Order Criminal Intent but then dozed off in the last ten minutes when they get around to resolving all the plots.  I woke at midnight last night. 

I didn’t have any cigarettes Thursday morning.  I went out at three thirty and smoked what butts I could muster from the ash trays.  I went to the other side.  I got up a little before four thirty and took a shower.  I checked the dining room both days to see if there was any coffee action and there wasn’t.  Thursday morning I felt hyper so got my medication at five thirty and came back fifteen minutes later for cough medicine.  Someone has already opened the new bottle.  I hadn’t been sure of that.  I went out at seven and the sunrise occurred between three and four minutes after seven.  A couple of days earlier it was six after seven.  Thursday morning we had cream of wheat followed by French toast and two dried up sausages.   Chris gave me his entire plate but I only got to utilize one of the French toast pieces and the syrup.  Some guy took the rest of the plate.  I got coffee.   I was hoping Chris would give me cigarettes, which he did.  He gave me three in the morning.  I was anxiously awaiting the housekeeper’s arrival.   Augustine and Sarah had been active the previous day doing God knows what.  I prepared the room for the housekeeper.  She arrived just after nine.  When I approached Sarah was a few feet in the room with a spray bottle.  I had gotten the idea that they were spraying down all surfaces because they wanted to rid the place of viruses.  The morning was a long one.  I kept checking and either she was on a break or she wasn’t close to finishing.  By the time she finally got done after lunch I checked the room and the room was more thoroughly cleaned than usual.  She put a book on Cats in my bookcase.  But you guessed it.  She didn’t make up the beds.  This made me anxious because I didn’t know what was coming.  This day the LA County health thing got over at ten after one and I was able to catch all of today’s Days of our Lives episodes. 

I thought of changing the lunch menu yesterday but I didn’t.  It was a pork chop or something with gravy and two giant sweet potato pieces.  I only ate half of one of the pieces.  There were mixed vegetables.  We had butter pecan ice cream for dessert.  Right after lunch Chris gave me a whole pack of cigarettes.  He said I could pay him back when I could.  Oh if you didn’t now, they now have yellow ribbon across the front doors.  They really don’t want people going out.  Me being under the tension I was I smoked more.  Room 209 came in for the treatment.  All the staff gathered in that room like ants at a picnic scurrying about and speaking to each other in Spanish.  I know what the word “todos” means.  It means everything.  It was Gene’s room and later I heard Augustine talking to Gene about where his stuff was.  Then they came to room 212 and then moved on to 210.  Neither of these rooms got “the treatment”.  Then at twenty to three there was a knock on the door.  It seems they are changing the mattress covers.  I later found out from hanging around Joe that they were still concerned about bed bugs.  I guess you could say we got off easy.  Sarah came in and said I would have to leave.  I left and had one cigarette and then sat on the floor with Joe in the hall listening to what was going on inside.  Then Sarah said it wouldn’t be long.  I went out for another cigarette.  I came back and now Augustine told me that he had moved my computer and my lamp against the other wall.  Also he had swapped out positions of the bookcase and the CD cabinet.  There is now that one chair in-between the beds where Joe sits and watches TV.  Joe got it worse in some respects because his whole dresser was moved and all of his stuff was moved around and put in boxes.  When I saw the boxes of his stuff in the hall alarm bells went off.  At any rate they were finally done and I conversed with Augustine about the radio outlet.  Trump was on at three this day too but I had to turn the TV off to leave.  Trump is still holding out for an Easter resurrection of the economy. 

We had pizzas for dinner and a side order.  Someone gave me a third piece of pizza.  We had a banana for dessert.  In terms of temperature taking, they come at random, unpredictable times.  The last four readings I remember are 96.6 and 94.1 and 96.2 and today’s was 96.8.  In the evening it was getting use to how close the beds are together and probably the six foot rule is violated.  I already told you about the evening fare.  This morning I woke at 3:30 and went out and smoked one cigarette.  Then I went back to bed.  But at four thirty I went out again and this time I smoked two cigarettes with a diminishing number of cigarettes.  Denise returned with the laundry after five.  I coupled the socks last night.  Eventually I began putting the clothes away.  Everything was there.  Both Thursday and this morning I got coffee from John Kip in his room with two plastic tea spoons of coffee.  John was good to proactively offer.  This morning I had Stephanie Miller on with John Fugelsang.   We had corn flakes for breakfast today and a square egg and triangular toast with butter and jelly.  They never cleaned the table and I ate at a dirty table.  I used he headphones on both Frangela and also Martin Sheen and Thom Hartman.  We aren’t that far from the bottom of page seven.  I hope to get off a blog tomorrow.  Right now the mayor is speaking once more.   Both the governor and mayor were present at the ship’s arrival.  The thought came to me “It’s like the piggies gathering and showing off their brass”. 

Trump May Go to War with Iran

This is Saturday May 25th and now for the most important item.   I finally learned what the "H" in Jesus H Christ stands for.  It's "Herald" as in "Herald by thy name" in the Lord's Prayer.  It got started in the middle of the 1800's and Mark Twin was somehow involved.  In other news they'll be skiing in Mammoth Mountain into the month of July.  They have a lot of snow.  I guess people in the South are having their first hundred degree heat wave of the year.  Meanwhile we had rain on Thursday and are expecting rain tonight and into tomorrow.  Yesterday I went on a nature walk at the El Dorado nature center in eastern Long Beach near the San Gabriel River.  It's kind of an organic trail that even disappears a couple of times and you don't know which way to go.  I may have a separate blog post for that visit in a day or two.  Meanwhile there is the Rolling Thunder review of motorcycle vets on parade in Washington DC.  They began the event in 1988 and this is their 31st and final year at it due to "expences".  Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi is slurring her words if we believe a doctored tape of her that is circulating.  According to Trump, Nancy is losing it and doesn't remember how calm the president was during their meeting the other day.  Now here is older stuff.

Yesterday Thom Hartman was arguing that we had already crossed the threshold to a totalitarian state and Trump was the new dictator.  He argued that we have gone the way of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey.  Democratic elections may be a thing of the past because we have a man in the White House that basically does not respect the constitution.  If the Supreme Court or congress orders him to do something he’ll either defy or go around them, like Trump did when he funneled money from the military to build the border wall.  Even if Trump is impeached he may decide not to leave office, and who is going to make him?  The executive branch has the police powers.  President Andrew Jackson twice defied a supreme court decision handed down by John Marshal.  One time it was to end the “Trail of Tears” of the Cherokee people, and the other was ending the National Bank of the United States, which threw us into one of the worst recessions we’ve had in this country.   Lincoln refused to respect the Dread Scott decision by Justice Tawney when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1982.  Southerners thus formed a legal basis for defying this president.  That was yesterday.  Today Hartman is arguing in favor of high terrifs.  My position is like that caller.  It’s been too long and we are addicted to cheap foreign goods and our economy relies on free trade.  You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.  When Reagan took office the toothpaste was still in the tube and our terriffs were in place.  You can’t un-ring a bell.  If I were the democratic nominee I would say to the President “you can do what you feel like doing on trade but I am of a different opinion and this election will put our ideas to a vote.  To at this point try and run out ahead of the Republicans and take the lead on the fair trade issue, would be suicidal and would facilitate a Trump victory.  Our one bargaining, wedge issue is that the economy will tank next year and it’s all Trump’s fault. 

Stephanie has been good at summarizing Trump’s tantrums.   The biggest news of the past 24 hours is that Trump met with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the oval office.  He closed the drapes so you couldn’t see out into the rose garden or the podium and chairs and microphone that were already set up where Trump would next be headed to denounce the meeting.  Trump’s promises of cooperation in getting infra-structure weren’t worth a thing.  We already knew that.  Dorthey knew it at the time when that auspicious meeting a few weeks ago was held and we were all so optimistic about cooperation.   President Trump didn’t like Nancy accusing the president of a “cover-up”.  Trump said that all this talk by the Democrats of collu9sion with Russia over the past three years has “Done damage to the country”.  This is the most amazing case of blame shifting I’ve seen.  Meanwhile Stephanie says Trump has lost three major court decisions in the past few days.  But I wouldn’t get too optimistic about “the walls closing in” because we’ve heard that so many times before.  Trump still thinks he’ll win next year.   Of course the other big store is this declared war with Iran.   Yesterday afternoon during the three thirty news while there was thunder and lightning and a downpour around here,  we heard that ten thousand troops were being ordered to Iran on orders of the pentagon.  So we will have a full-fledged war next year during Trump’s reelection campaign.  The question is whether congress will go along with all of this escalation because they hold the purse strings.  That “American Talliban” guy will be released from an Indiana prison in a few days.  He has spent seventeen of his twenty year sentence behind bars and now various people are panicked that he’ll be free and presumably will continue to preach his pro Talliban propaganda. 

I had a dream I was in the Bosc bedroom at a quarter to three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep.  So I decided taking a shower would help.  It was a public shower and another guy was in there.  He soon left but then a nude high school girl came in.  And then another girl came in.  Obviously I was getting self conscious.  Then three females who knew me passed by the walk way and one of them said “Hi”.  But they couldn’t see me over the patrician.  I decided to leave.  I was apparently at some Michael Jackson museum or something and I was in kind of a shopping mall thing.  There was this boy and girl couple that both had Mohawk haircuts or something and someone joked they were brother and sister.  They were about ninth grade or something.  I ordered a Michael Jackson special of tuna and sliced red bell peppers.  The tuna was of higher quality but I remarked to someone that Jackson has strange favorites.   I don’t know what time of day this took place.  Maybe it was still the wee hours of the morning. 

Trump Isn't as Weak as we Think

Alllan Lichman is the featured guest on the Rick Unger show at three.  He outlines four whole categories of charges that could be leveled against the president.   People forget that there is a whole middle step between impeachment and the senate vote, and that is the actual trial of the President where more facts are brought out.  And they are brought out by House members.  The Senate does not set the agenda for the trial of the president.   President Trump is doomed anyhow because of two other things.  He’s doomed on the terriff issue.  President Trump actually wants to expand the scope of Chinese terrifs to electronics.  This will really cripple the economy even worse.  Then we have the whole abortion front.  The president is doomed on this issue already.  He will forever be tied to Alabama and Missouri and these other states that have voted to ban abortion at an early stage.  Donald Trump got where he is by going negative.  Biden says that being angry doesn’t sell.  Yet Trump’s whole approach to the electorate is to be mean and nasty and indignent.  This brings us to Joel Olsteen’s sermon last Sunday saying that being positive and upbeat always pays off.  Yet there are times even when flying an airplane that a pilot can go into a stall if he tries to lift up the nose of the plane too much too soon.  More important than the wing “attitude” is what kind of engines do you have on that plane.  If you don’t have the power you’ll go down.  And with a Christian if you pretend you have the power when you don’t, you’ll go down in flames.  You need to see the whole picture and one thing that pastors love to do is to have a small fragment of the truth which will not save you.  Allan Lichman has a good track record for predicting presidential elections.  He predicted a Trump win in 2016 in the face of all the polls.  Lichman says the polls are wrong, and they are wrong this time.  He says if the election were held today that Trump would win again.  I’ll defer to his track record.  An impeachment trial would affect many of the “Thirteen keys to winning the election”.  One will remember that Nixon won in a landslide victory in 1972 despite Watergate.  (Selah)  In Youngstown things still aren’t  that good economically but they are sticking with the president according to the polls.  Not only this but Joe Biden just said that “China is really not that much of a problem as far as competition is concerned.  That’s a bad case of foot in mouth disease.  Biden also attacked young people in the milenial generation when he called them lazy and didn’t have to work for the money they got but only want free stuff.  That may get him points with the older Generation X people but milenials by the droves have a reason not to vote for Biden.  And if they stay home and don’t vote for Joe Biden, he could well lose the election. 

I was going to type about the origens of Christianity.  But I'm not in the mood.  Instead I want to talk about rock songs we haven't included on a compilation.   Here are song songs that have occurred to me that we have thought about for some time.  This is a preliminary list.

Gee (How I Love that Girl)   The Crows
Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean (artist)
You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog (Bib Mama Thornton)
Drunk! (September 1953)
Hole in the Wall (ditto)
Lucille (Little Richard)
Susie Q (Dale Hawkins) (?)
Goody, Goody  (Frankie Lineman)
Smokey Paces (Corsairs) (?)
B-Baby B-Blue (artist?) 
Surf Beat (Dick Dale) 

Still in the Impeachment Doldrums

It's been a week since I’ve done a blog.  I’ve had gastro-intestinal problems and I have also suffered from shortness of breath in the mornings.  We are still in the impeachment doldrums.  Impeachment seems no closer now than it was two years ago when Muller was first appointed.  Even the Rude Pundit, who was on this morning, seemed surprisingly lacking in energy.  Then you have Rand Paul on “This Week” yesterday confusing the issue so it looks like the democrats are just as guilty of undo influence in the election as the Republicans.  This will make it easier for people making a last minute decision at the polls to pull the lever for Trump.  After all if the economy holds up and we manage to stay out of wars for another year,  Trump; will be looking good in the eyes of a lot of people on the fence.  In the news we have a world-wide shortage of helium so that the party balloon business could suffer.  Stephanie was playing a speeded up version of “Turn out the lights; the party’s over”.   How could the price of a common substance like helium suddenly go up ten fold?  Does it have anything to do with the disappearing ozone layer?  Too much freon?  On Sixty Minutes we learn how in one definite instance of collusion and it’s among the drug manufacturors.  About 2014 the price of many, many drugs went up between five and ten fold and perhaps more.  There are traceable phone calls made the day of these massive price increases and all of the manufacturors raised their prices when a day or two of each other and there is verbal confirmation of that.  This has to be the biggest price fixing scandal in the past hundred years.  Meanwhile we learn a week or so ago that President Trump lost a billion dollars between 1985 and 1994 and paid no income taxes.  Trump is the most complete fraud we have ever seen in either politics or business.  He writes books and brags on TV how great he is when he’s nothing but a reckless swindler. 

Whether Muller testifies before congress is still up in the air.  They have reverted to saying that Barr will decide whether Muller testifies and Barr hasn’t chimed in officially.  Chris Darden the OJ prosecutor, has been scared out of legally defending the guy that shot that rapper outside of his clothing establishment last month.  He says “It was part of a dispute”.   Darden has received death threats and this is uncalled for.  Darden is right.  Every black man deserves legal council even if he’s attained to the status of “Christ killer” or something for gunning down a guy they’ve made a virtual saint of here in LA with that exhaustive funeral coverage and all of the intersection renamings.   We can’t live by fear and intimidation and this is what Darden is bowing to by withdrawing.   Meanwhile there is a revival of the MERSA virus here in LA and someone said it’s spread in the police department.   Those republicans in the senate still want to hear more from Donald Trump Jr.  It might be softball friendly questioning, but he’ll have to take the fifth as soon as the democrats get up to ask questions.  Now there is some pesticide that they want to get rid of because it was invented by the Nazis before WW II.  There is no further word on whether they have banned tobacco sales in Beverly Hills.  There is talk of the extinction of multiple species because of clean-up from all those fires we had last year.   They said they put ethanol in all gasoline now except for that which is used for older cars.  I didn’t know that.  It’s been shown that producing ethanol by raising crops is actually an energy deficit. 

President Trump is doing everything he can to blow up the nuclear treaty with Iran and start a war there with some trumped up charge about Iranian aggression against “American interests”.  My guess is he’s just looking for any excuse.  He tried to start a war in Venesuela and when he failed there he’s going for Iran now.  Then there is the whole Chinese terriff question and everything webuy will be increased 25%, which will put a brake on the economy.  When we had terrifs fifty years ago things were fine.  But you can’t get off them and then restart them just like that.   Blame President Reagan for eliminating the terriffs in the first place.  Of course the stock markets are going down now.  In political news Joe Biden is at 36% making him by far the number one person to beat in the democratic primaries.  Sanders is now a weak second.  If this keeps up they can go back to just having seven or eight in the debate because even that number will be generous because there are only a very few candidates above two percent.  Meanwhile Camilla Harris is refocusing her campaign on “prosecuting Trump” because Harris is a former prosecutor and it’s her specialty.  People like Biden because he’s going after Trump personally and Democrats now seemed intent on focusing their efforts to getting rid of Trump.   I think this is a very good idea because if Trump stays in another term the statute of limitations will expire on a lot of crimes in July of 2022 and Trump will have gotten away with everything.  Trying Trump in the press for his offenses is safer than trying him in the US Republican senate.  

Three state bills I’m against are this school district tax to make up for the fact that the LA school district has to shell out a lot of extra money because of the recent teacher’s strike.  I am also against the bill to have no school start class before eight thirty in the morning.  A statewide bill is too broad here.  They need to handle this issue at the school district.  Also I am against this move to extend the time bars may serve liquor to four in the morning.  Clearly this will increase drunk driving and arrests and car crashes.  It’s a safeguard in society we need to keep in place. 

As to this gun bill school states are passing to arm teachers in the classroom I am undecided about this one.  It just might be a good idea to save lives in case of a mass school shooting, which occur at least once a week these days.  The likelihood of any student seeing violence in the classroom has gone up dramatically from my day.  The teachers should be trained and have a psychological background check.  The gun should not be used to “enforce discipline”.