Bampa in the house

One anchor of sanity I still have is that I have a FaceTime call with my wife every night. Or, rather, I call my wife’s phone, which my granddaughter Iliana monopolizes immediately.

Sometimes, she sees me and immediately yells “Momo!”, which is how she pronounces “Elmo”. I have an Elmo puppet and she likes to say hello.

Sometimes, she says “Ca’!”, which means I have to go hunt down the cat. Our cat never obligingly curls up in my lap, she’s always off somewhere else, so I have to wander around the house to find her, and then when she sees me coming with the phone, she runs off to hide. Iliana associates me with a cat, though, so I have to track her down.

And sometimes she just shouts “Bampa!” like she’s happy to see me. Then I’m expected to follow her around as she shows off her toys. Or rather, Mary has to follow her around keeping her in view. I might get one or two sentences with Mary on these calls. That’s OK, we grandparents have a moral duty, and I aim to fulfill it.

Which America?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has endorsed noble self-sacrifice as a reason to prop up the economy.

No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.

I want to, you know, live smart and see through this, but I don’t want to see the whole country to be sacrificed, and that’s what I see.

How brave. I would just ask, which America? The one all America loves? What’s that?

The America that is trying to heal scars of slavery, that believes in giving everyone an equal opportunity, that supports the dignity of labor with unions, that respects the rights of other people outside our borders, and that welcomes new immigrants? That’s the America I grew up with. It was a pretty good promise of an America, flawed but at least we had some ideals, and while we fell far short of meeting them, there was a hope of change.

Or does he mean the America of overpaid CEOs, healthcare run for the profit of insurance companies, white nationalists, border camps, stolen children, drone strikes, greed and inequity? Because I’m not willing to risk my life for that America. I want that America to die, not me. We should be honoring our grandparents rather than treating them as disposable, to help Wall Street bankers.

I think Patrick misspoke. He meant to say the capitalism that all capitalists love, not America.

Please do go die for your “America”, Lt. Gov. Patrick. That will help me as I live for mine.

Christians are selfish, awful people

While other people are isolating themselves to slow the spread of the epidemic, Michigan Republicans pushed through an exemption to allow churches to have gatherings of 50 or more people.

Meanwhile, in Florida, this pompous ass is encouraging his congregation to hug each other and promises that he’ll never close his services.

Before you say Darwin award, keep in mind that the purpose of all this quarantine stuff is to reduce the chances that community medical infrastructure isn’t overwhelmed. These selfish assholes are going to kill other people outside their church.

The only way to avoid that is if we add a further restriction to that church exemption: sure, you can gather in loud Jebus-whoopin’ crowds and hug and slobber all over each other, on the condition that we get to lock you in, and you don’t get to come out until the worst of the pandemic is over. I’m sure the Lord will protect you.

All it takes is a good man acquiescing to thugs in power

Dr Anthony Fauci did a quick interview. I’ve been wondering why he continues to stand up there, fronting for a mob of science-denying incompetents. He doesn’t answer that question.

Q. You stood nearby while President Trump was in the Rose Garden shaking hands with people. You’re a doctor. You must have had a reaction like, Sir, please don’t do that.

A: Yes, I say that to the task force. I say that to the staff. We should not be doing that. Not only that–we should be physically separating a bit more on those press conferences. To his credit, the Vice President [Mike Pence] is really pushing for physical separation of the task force [during meetings]. He keeps people out of the room–as soon as the room gets like more than 10 people or so, it’s ‘Out, everybody else out, go to a different room.’ So with regard to the task force, the Vice President is really a bear in making sure that we don’t crowd 30 people into the Situation Room, which is always crowded. So he’s definitely adhering to that. The situation on stage [for the press briefings] is a bit more problematic. I keep saying, is there any way we can get a virtual press conference. Thus far, no. But when you’re dealing with the White House, sometimes you have to say things 1,2,3,4 times, and then it happens. So I’m going to keep pushing.

That’s a lot of words attempting to justify why the White House gets to ignore their guidelines, especially since these press conferences are useless exercises in the leadership spreading misinformation — they could stop doing them altogether, send out an electronic press release, and lie to the people just as effectively.

You used the wrong word, Dr Fauci. You’re not “pushing”, you’re enabling.

Q: You’re standing there saying nobody should gather with more than 10 people and there are almost 10 people with you on the stage. And there are certainly more than 10 journalists in the audience.

A: I know that. I’m trying my best. I cannot do the impossible.

Funny. I’d like Fauci, and the entire scientific community, to stand boldly for scientific integrity and loudly reject the nonsense coming out of the president. I had no idea that was impossible.

Q: What about the travel restrictions? President Trump keeps saying that the travel ban for China, which began 2 February, had a big impact [on slowing the spread of the virus to the United States] and that he wishes China would have told us three to four months earlier and that they were “very secretive.” [China did not immediately reveal the discovery of a new coronavirus in late December, but by 10 January, Chinese researchers made the sequence of the virus public.] It just doesn’t comport with facts.

A: I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. That’s your job. Not standing with an idiot president.

Q: Most everyone thinks that you’re doing a remarkable job, but you’re standing there as the representative of truth and facts but things are being said that aren’t true and aren’t factual.

A: The way it happened is that after he made that statement [suggesting China could have revealed the discovery of a new coronavirus three to four months earlier], I told the appropriate people, it doesn’t comport, because two or three months earlier would have been September. The next time they sit down with him and talk about what he’s going to say, they will say, by the way, Mr. President, be careful about this and don’t say that. But I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.

You see, this is why I can’t be expected to ever hold a political position. I would jump in front of the microphone and push him down, and declare his statements incorrect. I’d be fired immediately afterwards, but I’m so tired of the mealy-mouthed apologists standing there timidly, pretending disinformation deserves respect. The occasional eyeroll on camera is not sufficient to merit praise.

In case you haven’t figure it out yet, I have not been at all impressed with Fauci’s performance. The only remarkable job he has done is to play the threadbare merkin dressing up the flaccid performance of the liar in chief.

Spring Break is over!

I guess that means those lovely days of sitting alone in my home office in my underwear with Radiohead playing on the speakers while I struggle to prepare teaching materials are over, and instead I begin those lovely days of sitting alone in my home office in my underwear with Radiohead playing on the speakers while I struggle to deliver teaching material online.

Maybe I should put on pants to highlight the subtle distinctions here.

We are now in a race for the dumbest pandemic advice

Florida takes an early lead, with a Republican lawmaker suggesting we aim a hair dryer up our nose to treat COVID-10.

Florida Okeechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper (R) referenced a program he said he saw on One American News Network on how to combat the coronavirus, the Lake Okeechobee News reports.

Said Culpepper: “One of the things that was pointed out in this interview with one of the foremost doctors who has studied the coronavirus said that the nasal passages and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body. That’s why the virus tends to go there until it then becomes healthy enough to go into the lungs.”

He added: “This sound really goofy, and it did to me too, but it works. Once the temperature reaches 136 degrees Fahrenheit, the virus falls apart, it disintegrates. I said how would you get the temperature up to 136 degrees? The answer was you use a blow dryer. You hold a blow dryer up to your face and you inhale through your nose and it kills all the viruses in your nose.”

Do I need to explain that that wouldn’t work at all, and would probably be deleterious to your sinuses?

By the way, One America News Network is a conspiracy-peddling, far right paranoid network that promotes nothing but pro-Trump bullshit. Don’t trust it.

Aaron Ginn, smug know-nothing

Last week there was an article published by a guy named Aaron Ginn in Medium, which purported that the current pandemic was going to fade out relatively quickly and do far less harm than others expected. The article was spread widely — you might even say it went viral — and some big names in media promoted it. It was recently taken down, though, and I can’t link to it, nor would I, even if I could. It was a terrible article.

It was interesting as an exercise in critical thinking, though. The first week of my introductory biology course I share a bad science article with the students, and ask them to figure out how they would know whether to trust it or not. They quickly do the usual stuff — look at the source, look at the author, look at the quality of the data — which should have been the response to this article by Ginn…but no. It says things people wanted to hear, so it was disseminated uncritically.

What should have been noticed right away is that Ginn has zero qualifications in epidemiology, yet here he is claiming that the scientists were all wrong. You might be wondering what his qualifications are. He’s a silicon valley tech bro who claims to be an expert in “growth”, meaning how to increase the popularity of products online. Because he uses the word “virality” in his advertising and promotion work, surely he must be a master of the biology of real viruses. He even claims you don’t need a special degree to do epidemiology.

Jesus. Red flags and signal flares popping off all over that mess. The arrogance of these silicon valley dudes knows no limits, and we ought to be able to stop there. Except that Mr Ginn was quite annoyed when his silly, ignorant article was yanked, and he ran yipping and whining to other unqualified media personalities, like Brit Hume, Greg Guttfeld, and Steven Crowder (seriously, dude?), none of them with any qualifications in the subject, either. He’s being censored, don’t you know. He’s now frantically and rather indignantly defending his claims on Twitter. Someone ought to tell him that Brit Hume, let alone Crowder, isn’t exactly a smart guy to cite, and rather obviously his choice of who to beg for props is telling. Ginn writes for Breitbart in his spare time, and works with the California Republican party.

Anyway, ignore Ginn and his bad paper. Go read this Twitter thread by Carl Bergstrom, who actually knows what he’s talking about.

Ginn is puking up exactly the kind of misinformation that ought to be filtered out — he’s cocky and full of himself, but he knows pretty much nothing about the subject he’s lying about.

Sex and folk songs

Often, on a weekend I’d go to our local theater to see whatever was booked, no matter what it was. That was right out this weekend for two reasons. One, the movie playing was I Still Believe, “The true-life story of Christian music star Jeremy Camp and his journey of love and loss that looks to prove there is always hope.” Jesus. No. Just no. The theater does this every once in a while, booking some dreadful Christian dreck, usually at the request of local churches, to lure in the believers. They tend to come in droves. I wondered whether this was a cunning plan to bring in a mass of Christians to cross contaminate each other and terminate that ugly segment of the population, but no, the people who run the theater are nice and try to be accommodating to the community. Only I am wicked enough to imagine using cheesy evangelical Xian movies to seduce the faithful into embracing an epidemic.

Besides, the second reason I couldn’t go to the movies was that the theaters are all shut down. The plan was foiled.

But I still have Netflix! I started browsing, and perhaps it was my anti-Xian fuming that made it leap out at me, but The Wicker Man is available. No, not The Wicker Man, the 2006 abomination with Nicolas Cage, but the original 1973 movie with Edward Woodward. I remember seeing it when it first came out and enjoying it, but that was almost 50 years ago. It was memorable enough that I remember the plot. Spoilers ahead…but it is a 47 year old movie.

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No spiders today

I decided to get out of the house and take a walk. Everything is still dead and brown and frigid outdoors, but I had a cunning plan: I’d visit the university greenhouse! I was disappointed.

Oh, sure, there were colorful flowers.

But I was looking for spiders. The only arthropods I could find were some tiny ants scurrying all over twigs and leaves. You can’t escape ants.

There were some tantalizing dense cobwebs in a couple of close spaces, but the inhabitants weren’t hanging out. Probably lurking. I’ll have to come back and check again.