Category Archives: pandemic

This Year is Lost

About 2014 or 2015 after a meeting of our writers group I stood out in the evening chatting with member as our socializing tends to take place after the read and critique sessions when one member advanced the proposition that in American politics it doesn’t matter who you vote for because ‘they’re all the same.’ I strenuously disagreed. While there may be no best candidate on any particular slate there is always a worst one. In 2016 I had no doubts, none whatsoever, that the worst candidate for President of the United States was Donald Trump.

Setting aside his obvious history of racism, sexism, and corruption, and those were all disqualifying qualities, nothing in the man’s life, education, or experience remotely qualified him for the terrible power and responsibility of that office.  No matter the issues and doubts I may have held with Hillary Clinton, Trump’s deficiencies disqualified him from any serious, rational consideration.

The US Government and economy is like a massive ship, possessing nearly inconceivable amounts of momentum and not something that can be quickly turned to a new course. During his administration this worked in Trump’s favor. The steady economic growth from the previous administration continued benefiting the current occupant of the office, and the corrosion from Trump’s corruption ate at the ship’s hull but had not yet caused it to founder.

The novel corona virus and the disease it creates COVID-19 proved to be a crisis far beyond the capabilities of the little man and his limited grasp of reality. His narcissistic ego kept him from recognizing anything other than how his own image was affected and his decidedly limited intellect prevented him from taking the actions might have saved thousands and reflected well on himself.

He wasted the nation’s lockdown, never intended as a cure or the crisis’ resolution, never putting the full force, might, and capability of the Federal government into action and instead cut the various states loose to compete and cut each other’s throat as tens of thousands died. Now, while the rest of the world claws their way back to some sense of normality, albeit with serious programs in place as they deal with fresh outbreaks of this fatal disease, the USA’s health, economy, and respect sinks under the waves.

For the United States 2020 will be a lost year. We aren’t getting back to anything that even approaches normal. Three vaccines candidates are in phase III trials now and if one or more of them succeed we will not have it on hand before 2021.

Great power and responsibility should never be handed to incompetent fools.

 

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It Always Matters

Six years ago, after a meeting of the writers’ group I belong to one of the members voiced the opinion that in the3 USA who you voted for did not matter as all the politicians were effectively the same. It was another instance of cynicism masquerading as wisdom. The next presidential election presented the choices between an experienced candidate who had spent their entire life in the arena of publica service and narcissistic game show host with no experience in politics, service, or empathy. Today we are paying the price for selecting the game show host and pretending that the choices were in any way equivalent.

As of this week more than 100,0000 American have died of the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is far from over. When the news began filtering out of China, there were those in the administration that tried to sound alarms, tried to ready the nation and the government for a crisis but their leadership shut their eyes and plugged their ears pretending the crisis did not exist. When the outbreak became undeniable the nation was plunged, state by state, into an economic coma, throwing tens of millions out of work and destroying more than a decade’s growth but that might have been the right choice if the time it purchased had not been wasted. The ‘shut down’ was not the tool that would by itself suppress and mitigate the pandemic it was there to buy time so that the real tools, testing and tracing could be brought to the front and deployed against the enemy.

Again, the leadership failed the public. There was no mass mobilization for either testing or tracing. There wasn’t even coordination of efforts across the federal system but rather the opposite, states were pitted against states and against the Federal government itself. At least one state deploying its guard to protect incoming vital medical supplies not from bandits but from the Federal government coming in and confiscating the supplies for itself.

So now we are beginning to revive the comatose economy and we still do not have adequate levels of testing and we do not have the capacity to contact traces outbreaks. The best we can hope for is that the curve does not go up again but that we can keep the rate of infection and death level. If we do that, forestall any increase as people venture out and are forced back to their employment weather it is safe or not, then we can expect another 100,000 dead Americans by the end of the year. We will be near a quarter of a million dead Americans and for what?

For conservative judges?

For tax breaks on capitol?

What conservative gain is worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of American lives?

(Side note: Sweden did not put its economy into a coma and it is seeing as of this morning the first signs of economic growth, but it has a death rate from COVID-19 of 4.55 per million and the USA’s is 3.55 per million. Had the US followed that course it would have produced another 28,000 corpses.)

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Masks? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Masks

As with everything else in the current United States the simple logical and socially responsible act of wearing a mask in public had become a signifier of one’s political and tribal identity. In order loyalty-signal that one if a true and virtuous supporter of the President and all things beloved by Trump a mask in public must be forsworn, save for the township of Santee, CA where a KKK Hood is considered an acceptable substitute. Even in the White House and people who have direct contact with the nation’s chief executive, despite that the wearing of such equipment is about protecting not the wearer of the mask but the people that come into contact with, one does not wear a mask lest you provoke a Trump tantrum.

Of course, it has now turned out that one of the presidential valets who serves Trump his meals did not wear a mask and has now tested positive for the corona virus. Sources describe the president as ‘lava mad.’ I suppose it will be two weeks before we know if Trump has been infected enough to become ill with COVID-19 throwing this country into a political crisis on top of an economic crisis on top of a pandemic crisis.

Seriously, think about Trump falling critically ill. IN theory, on paper there’s no trouble if the president become incapacitated the Vice-President assume the powers of the office and things proceed, but this Administration does not exist in a theoretical ideal state. It is staffed with bootlickers chosen for their personal loyalty to Trump with motivations that do not line up neatly with the political class’s objectives. Our nation’s capital, already a swamp of backstabbing and camera hogging would turn so vicious as to make King’s Landing look like an afternoon volleyball game.

For the GOP, decades of degrading expertise, rejecting objective knowledge, and fomenting grievance politics over rational thought has come home to roost.

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A Few Collected Thoughts About the Current Crisis

My week of intense book promotion has ended and so today I’m going to toss out just a few thoughts about our current pandemic crisis.

 

There’s no point beyond racist blaming to insist on calling it by some derivation of its geographic origin. It has an official name that’s not hard to use, Covid19. To quote my own novel,

Do not hide your intention behind a facade of ‘accuracy.’

There is reason to mistrust some of the data from China but that doesn’t absolve any of the bungling and lies by our own government and politicians.

Inaction at the start of this crisis, when experts were calling for swift and important steps to be taken and the scope was becoming clear, is the reason we’re deep in trouble. This was never going to be easy. It’s a novel virus and we’re all susceptible but months ago procedures could have been put in place, testing capacity increased, and vital equipment produced ahead of the crisis. None of that was done because it clashed with what our leaders wanted to hear and once you can no longer utilize hard truths you’ve already lost.

 

This is why it is always vital to vote.

We are stuck with a narcissistic immature vengeful man-baby as our president because a handful of people didn’t get their preferred candidate. Hell, I was deeply unhappy with our selection in 2016 but it was painfully clear who could operate better in a crisis. Everyone who voted for Trump or cheered his victory shares in this disaster but also to blame are those who were ‘unenthused’ to vote against him. Voting is a responsibility, a civic duty, not a lark subject to whims and moods.

 

This will go on for awhile. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be painful, if we try to take an easy route out it will end up being more painful and more deaths. Save lives, stay home.

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BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

Due to the continuing Corona Crisis, not even a pandemic will stop my alliterations, the signing event for my first novel is now canceled.

With gatherings of 10 or more people highly discouraged the store, Mysterious Galaxy, has closed to foot and in-person traffic until at least April 1st. There are discussions of possibly rescheduling the event for later in the year but I am sure slots will be limited and I am not the only author impacted so a reschedule would be nice but I am not counting on it.

If you were planning to attend the event, or if independent bookstores are important to you, I suggest that you buy the book from Mysterious Galaxy anyway. They are taking orders and fulfilling them by mail. Bezos and Amazon will weather this storm with literally billions in cash but local businesses will not be so lucky.

Mysterious Galaxy is a critical factor in the existence of my novel Vulcan’s Forge. For ten years I have met there with my writing group and that has certainly leveled me up as a writer and their staff are always helpful, friendly, supportive, and knowledgeable. From Mysterious Galaxy and stores like them you get those personal recommendation that can lead you to a new favorite author, not something simply pushed by an algorithm.

Vulcan’s Forge is my first novel and I certainly hope it is not my last. Having your debut event canceled is tough but COVID-19 is tougher and we can weather this if we do the right things. So, I will be sad to not have that signing but I hope that instead people stay safe, healthy, and order the book online even if they can’t have my illegible scribbling defacing it.

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Debut in the Time of Corona

It is now less than two weeks until the publication of my first novel Vulcan’s Forge and the world is gripped in crisis. A novel corona, Covid-19, that emerged from China towards the end of 2019 is now rapidly spreading around the globe, shuttering entire cities, overwhelming hospitals, and killing people.

Far more important that my debut is fighting Covid-19. We have to keep our distances from each other, we have to disperse any large groups and gatherings, we have to flatten the curve because it is too late to halt the spread of the disease, Chinese and American mismanagement has assured us of that failure, but we can slow the growth enough, maybe, to keep from crashing ours and the world’s healthcare system.

The virus appeared in China in early December but reports were suppressed and people endangered by their government for speaking the truth. Reporting bad news is a bad thing to do in authoritarian systems, China refused concede that there was human to human transmission until later January, wasting vital time for the world to take the precautionary action required to stop the virus.

President Trump dismissed early warnings about the virus, berated staff for bringing it up, and lied to the public about the seriousness of the threat. We do not have an authoritarian system we do have a man-child for whom bad news is a forbidden subject.

Compounding the mismanagement by the presidential administration we have the bad decision making about testing and test kits. Test kits for identifying the virus were available for US agencies to mass produce and use but the decision was made to develop new test kits that would be able to detect a spectrum of corona viruses not only the specific virus causing the pandemic, Those new kits turned out to be faulty, and in limited supply, hamstringing our ability to know the facts on the ground as the disease established its beachhead in the United States.

We’re now facing serious troubles, but we can still do thing that matter. Soap and water is your best defense and the best thing you can do to protect those around you. Limiting social contact is essential.

I’ll admit to being depressed over my debut as a novelist during this crisis and to feeling guilty about being depressed. I’m no good at being noble but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of one little novel doesn’t’ amount to a hill of beans in the world. Yeah, I use movie quotes all the time in real life. Read my novel and you’ll understand.

 

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