RANDOM THOUGHTS ON POPPIES, COVID-19, RACISM, BIRDS, AND MORE - June 2020

The swifts have returned to the south of France. They chirp. They zoom like Spitfires. They eat bugs. And they shit up a storm. It seems as though they deposit the remains of every fly that they eat on the windshield of our car. Love the swifts. Hate the swifts.

About every second or third year is a good year for poppies. Here's one pic. I'll put up more on a separate post.

It;s hard being an American in a foreign country right now. France is certainly not perfect. But you can't point to evidence of institutional racism as easily as you can in the USofA. Police killing suspects in custody is unheard of here, much less that people of color are killed in greater numbers than their percentage of the population. There is no evidence that courts sentence people of color differently than whites as there is in the States. Is immigration from North Africa and the Middle East a perceived problem? Yes, it is. The fact that the number one name for newborn boys in the UK is Muhammad is startling when you think about it. And John Cleese was excoriated for saying that London doesn't feel British any more. But European countries were not founded on the principle of welcoming the immigrant in the same way that the USofA was. I'm not particularly proud of saying that I'm happy at this point in my life to be living in a rural, relatively apolitical region of an advanced European social democracy instead of the States. But there it is.

By the way, and before the Europeans in the audience get to feeling too righteous, let's not forget that slavery in the States was founded by people who were British citizens at the time.

If you lived in post WWII Los Angeles, the smog was so bad that people routinely wore masks. Only the creation of the EPA in 1970 eventually led to clean, breathable air in L.A., Pittsburgh, and other American cities. Wearing masks then wasn't a sign of slavery or social engineering. Wearing a mask was self-protection. Now, wearing a mask not only protects you, it protects the people that you come in contact with. Not perfect protection, certainly. But do you know if you have asymptomatic COVID-19 and could be an unwitting carrier? Wear the damn mask!

And speaking of COVID-19, a friend of mine in the States pointed out several weeks ago that France had a higher number of deaths per million population than the USofA. Take that! But in just a few weeks, the States has come close to catching up and will soon pass France in that unfortunate category. Nobody knows if there will be a second wave. Nobody knows if the recent fears of inflammatory diseases among children is a direct result of the virus. Nobody knows if a mutation will make matters worse. Wear the damn mask!

TRUMP SUPPORTER DEMANDS PROOF THAT TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FOUR. PROOF HAPPENED.

John McDaniel died a while back from COVID-19, a little more than one month after he repeatedly criticized Ohio's stay-at-home orders on Facebook. Bullshit, he said. Political ploy, he said. Now, his family says that if he had only known the seriousness of the disease, he would have acted differently. While I don't wish to speak ill of the dead, McDaniel knew the seriousness of the disease by the time he made those social media posts in March. He just chose to ignore it. If you believe in science, if you believe that two plus two equals four and not some number approximating four, the information was available. He knew. He didn't believe. So, he died.

You put a loaded gun with the safety off into your back pocket. You go to the movies. The gun goes off when you sit down, injuring the guy sitting behind you. That's reckless endangerment. You knew, or should have known, that your actions were irresponsible and put lives at risk. Reckless endangerment. It's a felony.

You have HIV/AIDS. You hook up in a bar. You don't tell your potential partner of your condition. You have unprotected sex. That's reckless endangerment. You knew, or should have known, that your actions were irresponsible and put lives at risk. Reckless endangerment. It's a felony.

You are sick of confinement. You decide to take Granny shopping. You don't wear a mask because you feel healthy. But you have asymptomatic COVID-19. You give Granny a hug when she comes through the door, you give Granny COVID-19, and Granny dies. You are not only an idiot, you are a felon. Claiming that it's your Constitutional right to be an idiot is, of course, true. But knowing, or having sufficient information available that you should have known, that your actions were irresponsible and put Granny's life at risk goes beyond idiocy. Reckless endangerment. It's a felony.

So don't talk to me about your fooking rights to leave your house or to not wear a mask during a pandemic. It's not about you. It's about your concern for people that you love, people that you know, and people that you don't know. It's about keeping the safety engaged. It's about being a responsible partner. It's about being a decent human being and not a felon whose actions endanger other peoples' lives.

IS IT JUST ME, OR...?

 ...do people not realize that reckless endangerment is not a Constitutional right? Folks from both ends of the political spectrum are upset at the 'loss of rights' during the current pandemic. If you want to surf off a deserted beach by yourself, why should the Gestapo try to stop you? Because if you get into trouble, dummy, some poor EMT might get COVID-19 trying to save your sorry ass, that's why.

...on the other side of the coin, are the people who demand that everyone stay indoors all of the time being unreasonable too? People who suffer from depression don't need you to tell them to just get over it. If they could, they would. So they need to keep busy. They need to garden, to DIY, to do stuff that might mean that they need to go shopping. Same with folks fighting an addiction. Stay the fuck at home, yes. But don't judge those who have needs that you may not understand. You'll go to the pharmacy for the sake of your health. Other people may have other needs.

 ...did you not chuckle, just a little, when Malwarebytes announced that malware and viruses on Macs now outpace Windows? 400% increase in attacks between 2018 and 2019. Yes, it did take a while for the myth of invulnerability to lose traction. But if you thought that your Mac was inherently safe, it's time to think again.

 ...has our culture been muddied to such an extent that only penalty for the baseball sign-stealing antics of the Houston Astros will be a paltry fine and that's it? If those involved in illegally determining the outcome of the games in which they played are not suspended indefinite!y, why is Pete Rose, who never bet on a game in which he participated and therefore never tried to determine an outcome, still an anathema to the Commissioner and banned from HOF consideration? Hypocrisy at the highest level.

...was Billie Eilish's version of Yesterday at the Oscars completely unlistenable? I couldn't get through the quavering, the tortured facial expressions. She may be the next big thing, but she's just a kid really, and that may insulate her from criticism. Check out the video. Cringe worthy. She has since been quoted as saying that she was intimidated by all of stars in the audience and that affected her performance. Maybe, there's still hope.