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.