Shields up – phasers on stun

January 6, 2022January 5, 2022Michael 9 Comments

‘Tis the season! Time again to remind everyone the difference between vaccines and force fields.

Not Vaccinated Section (5)

Not Vaccinated Section (4)

If you don’t want to get the COVID vaccine, don’t, but please, don’t make up reasons. Just that you’re stupid, selfish, irresponsible, and probably one of those people who wears shorts in the dead of winter are plenty enough reasons. Saying you won’t because the vaccine doesn’t work or else why would we be getting all these new cases isn’t a good enough reason.

Why do the people with Twitter and Facebook accounts read the stories that COVID cases are rising and even those who are vaccinated are testing positive, but they don’t read the ones that the vaccinated people getting positive test results are typically asymptomatic or exhibit mild symptoms while the unvaccinated are the ones filling up the hospitals and funeral homes/crematoria?

As a reminder, vaccines work inside the body. They assist the immune system to defend against an intruder virus. When a virus enters the body, the immune system goes to work. It can’t do its job “out there.” It works from home you might say. I would say you can use that as interesting talk at a cocktail party, but… well…

You all know the drill. Get vaccinated and boosted, wear your masks, wash you hands, keep your distance, and eventually you will get to go back out. To those who think that’s a good idea, thank you for your help to save the human race.

Cute stories will return next week.

(PS: Now those are light sabers!)

(PPS: Yes I know I’m mixing my Trek with my Wars. Tough! 😝)

Vaccines, Star Trek, and Fluorescent Lights

August 5, 2021August 4, 2021Michael 2 Comments

I promise you, this will be my last rant for a while. Even I’m getting tired of listening to myself. Fortunately, I wrote this, waited a day, read it, then re-wrote and it isn’t actually quite so abrasive as its first incarnation.

I think a new rant is justified because stupid has really taken hold of the reins and we need to get this wagon back on track. (Did you like the horse and buggy metaphor? I don’t think I’ve used that one here.) (Anyway…)

Anyway, what got me thinking was another news article, this one that a group of shoppers was mounting a boycott of a local supermarket deigning to require all employees and shoppers to wear masks beginning this Friday. This group is taking some unusual “justifications” for their actions. Not only does a mask requirement infringe upon their rights (you remember those, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of fabric-free faces), but that the CDC calling for masks in high transmission areas of the country is “proof” that the vaccine doesn’t work. Well to that I say horse hockey!

Yes, you heard me right. Horse Hockey!

First of all, considering the meteoric rise of COVID deaths and hospitalizations are near exclusively among unvaccinated individuals speaks to the effectiveness of the vaccines. And that there have been some positive cases among vaccinated individuals and the notice that it is indeed possible for vaccinated people to spread the disease is not news among those who understand immunology at least as well as they do Tic-Toc.

Try to picture this in your mind. Vaccines do not create a force field around you. This is not like in Star Trek. “Shields up, Mr. Sulu.” Even if it was, when do you ever see an episode when the shields weren’t breached, at least even a little bit? “I’m givin’ ‘em all wee got Cap’n, but I doona know how long thar’ll hold!” No, the vaccines are more like the incessant hum of a poorly grounded fluorescent light. You (or in this case the virus) goes into the room, plans on getting comfortable, switches on the light, and after hanging out for as long as you can take, you are driven out screaming, half crazed by the sensory assault. Before you went in the room you thought you found you happy spot. So you go on in but when you turn on the light, the room responds by making it so unlivable you are driven out.

Vaccines work like those lights. They can’t keep the virus from entering you. Viruses are out there hanging around, looking for a happy place to settle in. They see those big nostril openings and buzz on in. (Note: make sure masks cover noses.) Their presence trips the sensor that turns on the immune system which drives the little buggers out. So you see, the vaccine doesn’t keep you from getting the virus. It keeps you from getting sick from the virus. That explains why 99+% of the people in the US now sick and dying from COVID are unvaccinated. And that also explains why a vaccinated individual can test positive for COVID when they swab the inside of the nasal passages.

Now, here is something un-ranty. (Un-rantish?) (Un-rantlike?) August is Vaccine Awareness Month. It was founded by National Public Health Information Coalition nearly 10 years ago so it’s not something new just to trick you into getting the COVID vaccine. Remember my older posts. The first vaccine was developed in 1784. This is not new science. Do you part. Go get your vaccines. Already did? Wear a mask!

Okay, that’s it for now. Next week I promise promise promise I’ll be happier.

Have a Little Faith

January 25, 2021Michael 2 Comments

Over the weekend my daughter and I were discussing how people are no longer allowed to change their minds. Well of course, they can, and many do, but the world in general doesn’t like change. It may have to do with how many people can no longer think for themselves. Not that they don’t want to think for themselves but that they’ve lost the ability to do so. So many have gotten so used to doing whatever they are told, including what to think, they have lost faith in their own ability to reason.

Reason says there are things that happen of which we are aware and we can explain and we have to adapt to survive. Sometimes those are physical things. People who study the earth’s geological history know that even in the absence of man the earth is getting warmer. The sun is getting hotter, the earth’s orbit around the sun is changing, the speed of the earth’s rotation is changing, and instability deep within the earth the leads to volcanic eruptions continues. Just as the earth moved from its ice age to a state that can support human life it will someday move beyond that point to be uninhabitable by man. That doesn’t mean we don’t do what we can to lessen man’s impact. We can and should make changes, and many, many billions do make changes to preserve the environment. But we should not be so arrogant to think we’ll always have the climate we want and are comfortable with. We may have to change because the earth is certainly going to whether we believe it or not and that change is going to have an impact on us.

Reason also says there are things we cannot explain but they happen anyway. These are the changes we have a harder time with globally. Christians throughout the world recognize the power of change in the life of St. Paul of Tarsis who changed from persecutor of early Christians to one of Christianity’s greatest evangelists. His change was one taken on faith, hearing words heard by no one else. Arguments can be made that Paul saw that it was “better” that he serve the way of God rather than that of Caesar but then one has to make the argument for what constitutes better and how far one goes to make one’s point and no matter how you defend or attack those arguments it doesn’t change the fact that somebody changed his mind and in his mind the change was for what he considered better. He did not let what he was told earlier in his life prevent him from believing what he was told later. Regardless of what you believe, he believed and changed and that change made an impact in the world.

Over the last year we’ve heard what could be construed as conflicting reports on everything from what to use to wash your hands to how and when to wear your masks to whether it is safe to play sports and at what size does a gathering become a risk. That’s not to say that if we were told something – by experts – in October of 2020 that contradicts what we were told – by experts – in March 2020, that what was said earlier in the year was wrong. It means the experts learned something new about something that changed. Something became different, something that is measurable and addressable. You may not like that the virus mutated and that it might be best addressed by re-institution of isolation procedures but the mutation happened and just not believing is not an option. You can decide to not isolate but that won’t change that a mutation occured. And that others also probably will.

This is probably why, unless it has stood the test of a couple thousand years like the words of Paul, we should probably not “take as gospel” things we hear and may even ourselves say. But like Paul, we should recognize that even though we firmly believed something yesterday we can be open to believing something completely different tomorrow because whether you believe or not, the world will be different tomorrow.

Having a little faith in what you hear today, and believing in the change you make tomorrow, might make a big difference and have a great impact in your world.

Happy Anniversary?

January 21, 2021Michael 1 Comment

It’s not every day we see two momentous anniversaries. Actually that has to be untrue. I am certain a bazillion things happen every day that are momentous to somebody. Today there are two that are momentous to me. I’m sorry, that’s an untruth also. One I could care less about but it makes for an interesting contrast to the other.

On this date in 1972 the world’s first Star Trek convention was held in New York City. Wait, also untrue. On this date in 1972 the first “major” Star Trek convention was held in New York City. Who determined “major” I do not have a clue. I suppose “major” like “beauty” is in the eye of the beholder. Or the Spock ears. I enjoyed Star Trek but not so much that I made a trip to the Big Apple in full Star Fleet regalia. Apparently 3,000 people did enjoy it to that extent and showed up for it. No data regarding how many were in uniform. That’s a lot of people to pay homage to a TV show that had been off the air for 3 years by then and seven years before the motion picture would spawn an entire new crowd of crazies, errr fans. Remember that number though. We’ll get back to those 3,000 people in a moment.

January 21 commemorates another obscure occurence. It was in this day in 2020 (that was last year for those with short memories) that the first case of SARS-CoV-2, better known now as CoViD-19 was diagnosed in the United States. Since then 2,438,723 cases have been confirmed (as of Jan.20, 2021). That averages to over 6,000 cases per day. Twice as many people every day on average(!) get CoViD (that we know of) as those who flocked to NYC in their version of starship NCC-1701.

If you are having trouble picturing 2.4 million people that’s about the population of Chicago (2.7 million) or more than twice as many people in all of Rhode Island (1.1 million). That’s also about how many people have died from CoViD in the world since it worked it’s way into people some 14 months ago (2.06 million).

Let’s go back to the first Star Trek convention. Picture those 3,000 people milling about, some in Spock ears, and now imagine each person’s best friend who couldn’t make it to New York and is waiting back home. Now you have all 6,000 people in your mind. Well, that’s how many people die every day (on average(!)) from CoViD in the last year – in this world.

Do you think you could wear your mask now please? Spock ears optional.

Speaking Coronese

August 10, 2020Michael 2 Comments

It’s been six months in the US since the Corona Virus began making inroads into daily news reports. In early February, unless you were living in the Pacific Northwest, it was more a curiosity than a lifestyle. Some people weren’t certain of the difference between “corona” and “CoViD” and the really clever people were blaming the new virus on Mexican beer. By early March the news outlets were scrambling to count victims, interview experts, and pretend they knew what they meant when they spouted out the words of a language they hadn’t quite fully learned. Many sounded like parade commentators when they are reading the words on the teleprompter for the first time. By early April the cadence of the reports was smoother and the language of the virus, Coronese, was fast becoming the second language everybody wanted to speak. Today we toss around words and phrases like positivity, epidemiology, herd immunity, contact tracing, and the ever popular self-isolation and social distancing like we grew up with them. This is the language of the virus. The formal language if you will. But there’s another language of the virus the goes beyond the jargon. The language of the street (or social media depending where you spend your time), the slang, the language we speak when we take off our hat and coat and sit with friends. Friends we might still want to think hard about and consider if they are worth violating social distance guidelines for and end up self isolating with.

Every language devolves into its guttural form and Coronese is no different. Some words are lend words from legitimate language. We now “zoom” whenever we hold a video chat sessions and “mask up” regardless of what body part we are covering with whatever we are covering it with for protection from whatever. Some words are bastardized versions of the technical jargon or legitimate language. Such as “the ‘rona” when referring to anything virus related, “iso-” anything when done alone, or “blursday” for any unspecified or forgotten day of the week.

My favorite words of Coronese are the covomanteaus, itself a portmanteau of CoviD and portmanteau. In my mind, warped as it tends to be sometimes, I’ve not yet decided if CoViD itself is an acronym (thus CoViD) or a portmanteau (as the more popular and in my opinion lazier, covid) of Corona Virus Disease. These covomanteaus include covidiot (anyone ignoring specific virus protection recommendations or clueless of the disease in general), covideo (chatting by video or the video chat session itself), quaranteam (your colleagues also working from home performing as a single work unit), and quarantini (although there are actually specific recipes for a “quarantini” it can pretty much be any cocktail made with any ingredients readily available generally using whatever vodka remains after making your own hand sanitizer).

Still with all the technical jargon, legitimate language, and coronaslang, Coronese is missing some important words and giving it due consideration, I’ve decided I am just the one to start filling those holes, or virogaps as any knowledge gap regarding the ‘rona will now be known. So far I’ve come up with covomanteau and virogap but I’ll be working on it day and night. I may put together a quaranteam and we can work together after a short ronamute to our homeworkstations and have a comprehensive ronapedia distributed before we covexit this virocrisis. Until then, keep washing your hands and remember to mask up!

Alive and Kicking

June 15, 2020Michael 2 Comments

I’ve missed some of my “regular “posting days but not to worry, I’m still alive and kicking. You may recall I’m in the midst of preparing for a move and that has taken me to places filled with cardboard boxes and bubble wrap and tape that sticks to everything except cardboard boxes. But I am quite alive and desperately kicking. I haven’t always been here to write and occassionally I don’t even get to read as much as I’d like, but… well, as I said I’m still alive and kicking. Now just in case you might have missed some of the news, I took some time over the weekend to catch up on it and I’ve found I am not the only thing you might have mistaken as being out of your lives but in reality is still A and K.

Also very much alive is:

Working from home. I don’t know what the conditions are around you but around me quarantine orders are relaxing. Retail businesses are opening and some restaurants have either reopened their doors to half capacity crowds or have co-opted outdoor space, or both, to satisfy the eating out crowd at acceptably social distances. This has “resurrected” an early casualty of the virus, traffic. But office based businesses are still mostly still home based and you can tell by the way the group dog walks happen every day at 8:30, 12:30 and 4:30.

Spam calls: What looked to be another early virus casualty, unsolicited sales calls and robocalls have proved to be rich in COVID antibodies and are thriving once again. More likely the robo-coders got established in their home offices and the rest is weird history.

Greed: If you think really hard you might remember those early fund raisers, donations, food distributions, and loan/living expense forgiveness programs that were once all the headlines. It took less than a fiscal quarter for the layoffs, contract renegotiations, and bankruptcies to re-capture the headlines.

Hatred: I’ll leave this to your nightly news.

Stupid memes: In typical American fashion we can’t let a crisis go by without demonstrating that we can overdo everything. Robert Orben, a professional comedy writer known for his work in early telelvision including the Jack Parr and Red Skelton shows and author of The Speakers Handbook of Humor, said:

In prehistoric times, mankind often had only two choices in crisis situations: fight or flee. In modern times, humor offers us a third alternative; fight, flee – or laugh.

Unfortunately it’s the amateur comedy writers who feel they know just the right clip to exploit to keep is laughing through the crisis. They don’t.

That virus thing: Again, I don’t know what the conditions are around you but around me I’m expecting all heck to break loose in another week or two. Record positive results and hospitalizations have been recorded in Texas, Florida, California, and both Carolinas, where quarantines were lifted, beaches opened, and social distancing ignored. I know it is politically incorrect to say but you can’t not expect there to be some virulent response to the amassed masses no matter how righteous the cause. The virus doesn’t care.

Yep, all of the above are alive and kicking. In fact, the only thing that seems to be in short supply is some love for a fellow human. How about it, can you spare a cup of love?