The Virus Chronicles (continued)

31 March 2020

It occurred to me that the best thing the press could do would be to attend the President's daily briefing, listen respectfully, then ask no questions. Afterall, there are no more questions that need answering; the President just likes the attention. The Atlantic has broken the code with their COVID-19—free reading list (a fine list it is, too).

It's hard to believe, but there are still hard core conservatives and conspiracy theorists who think the Corona virus is a hoax, no worse than the flu. They think they are supporting the President. Jerry Falwell, Jr, in Lynchburg, Virginia comes to mind, and Jon Rappoport, writing from Moscow, who is certain lots of those COVID-19 deaths are just pneumonia.

In the absence of hard news at this point (1340 EDT), I offer a CORONA Haiku (what else would shut-in poet offer?).

Laid low by Covid,
A nation cow'rs, leaderless,
As Trump basks daily.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

30 March 2020

The President figured out that his threat to quarantine New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were illegal. Rather than back down, the Narcissist in Chief just quietly made it a suggestion. We really are slipping into third world country status.
The word is out that the US tried to develop an advanced lightweight respirator about ten years ago. The small firm that had the contract made a prototype, then got swallowed up by Medtronic, who got bought by a leveraged buyout group. That was the end of that. US industrial might is a thing of the past. Now we just have schmucks who chase money around, feeding off the carcass of a once great manufacturing state. Sometimes I think we should be herding the Henry Kravises into camps and making them dig trenches with their fingernails. Then we should be holding guns to the heads of our legislators until the leveraged buyout is outlawed.
A friend sat in his yard recently with a neighbor. It turns out the neighbor had been to New York. Now the friend is self isolating, and his neighbor is in extremis. It's a story told again and again.
This afternoon our governor mandated that all Virginians stay in their homes unless they are doing vital business. Vital business includes food shopping, pet care, elderly care, exercise such as running, golf, and fishing. Somehow, when Governor Blackface speaks, he sounds like someone who doesn't belong in the governor's office. The President's radio acolytes are outraged at the restrictions.
The President's love affair the unproven drug chloroquinine continues. Today, at the five o'clock follies, one of his acolytes stated that the US has ordered over two million doses from two producers, even though we still don't know if it works on COVID-19.

Passover with My Wife, Rabbi Rose

My wife, Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob, is used to making a Seder t least one night, and spending the other, perhaps, with her brother. In this year of the plague, the world is turned upside down, and she has responded, as she often does, in verse:

With Passover just around the corner...I turned to one of my most trusted doctors, Dr. Seuss. The good doctor (of blessed memory) gave me these words to share on social distancing during Passover:

I do not want you in my house

I do not want you or your spouse

I do not wish to eat with you
At Seder one or Seder two!

Don't get me wrong, I think you're nice
But the CDC gave out this advice,
"Ten Plagues are enough, you don't need one more
Turn Elijah away if he shows up at your  door"

This year's only guests: Father, mother, sister, brother. NEXT YEAR in Jerusalem! We will say to each other.
From now on at each Seder, this story we'll tell,
Of how God saved his people with a squirt of PURELL!

She is a fabulous cook, so I answered her:

Sorta brilliant!

Sorta cool!

I think you are,

A poetic Jewel.
I like you lots,

Like how you cook,

I'd eat your food,

Even in a nook.

I love your food,

How much would I eat?

Why I'd eat lotsa,

Even with matzoh!

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

29 March 2020

I have always cared little for Facebook™ but it is a useful evil for keeping up with old shipmates and family wheresoever dispersed. These days we are dispersed, and with the pandemic, keeping up to date seems suddenly important, lest shipmates, distant friends, and relatives vanish. The other day an old shipmate posted that a friend, 65, had come down with "symptoms". Within days he was in the hospital, on dialysis. Prognosis is poor, his fiance cannot, of course, see him.

This scene repeats itself continuously; occasionally a news outlet not friendly to the President will interview a distraught spouse about an experience wherein he or she deposited a loved one at the emergency room door, never to see him or her again. In this pandemic each victim dies alone. As my wife learnt from her niece, who is part of the local burial society in her town in Israel, they must also be buried alone, without the proper ritual of our faith. This virus spawns an attack without mercy and a death without comfort or dignity.

"Not friendly to the President" is a key phrase. If an outlet or writer is friendly to the President, then all aspects of the pandemic are minimized, all truth tellers are criticized, and their pasts scrutinized for any possible issues that can be brought out as reasons to doubt them (maybe they bounced a check 40 years ago? Did they support 'Hillary'?). If they are not "friendly to the President," then they are likely telling the truth and running simple facts.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

27 March 2020:

The President has activated the Defense Production Act, but as with everything he does, he is unable to simply do something without insulting someone. He didn't just direct General Motors to make respirators. He directed them to make them, and when they refused to bend to his will on contract terms, he imposed terms on them, and gave their CEO an insulting name. Then he introduced his Defense Production Czar who further explained that GM wouldn't just be making respirators, but would be making them in “Trump Time.” Everything in this government must relate back to the 'Dear Leader.' Every speaker must thank him for his leadership in this crisis, because every speaker is committing the sin of speaking instead of Donald Trump.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

25 March 2020

New York is the hottest of hot zones in the country, but Virginia is warming up, especially in the urbanized area of northern Virginia near DC. Presumably Tidewater won't be far behind, since it has significant interchange with the Pentagon/Northern Virginia DoD complex. The first few COVID-19 cases have shown up in the fleet, but they are isolated.

A Few Observations

The President is not entirely wrong, but he doesn't understand why or how. It's related to the difference between the United States and China, or between any national dictatorship and a democratic republic based on federal principles. China was able to completely close off the affected area in the vicinity of Wuhan Province, and expand it as necessary. That permitted the reminder of the country to function. What made this possible was the absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party, and the relatively complaint nature of the population rooted in Chinese culture.

The political organization of the United States makes this nearly impossible. States are relatively sovereign entities. The federal government cannot quarantine a state, or a region (for example, NY City, the immediate northern counties, and Long Island). If it attempted to do so, it would have to declare martial law, and bring out troops. The population might boil up in rebellion. The likes of Fox News and Mark Levin would keep the current president from doing such a thing, yet that is how China dealt with their outbreak. They did not bring the entire country to its knees. Dictatorship has its advantages.

The President, as a narcissist, cannot stop himself from trying to answer every question from the press. He stands on the podium each night, acting as the countries's epidemiologist in chief and ringmaster. As reporters throw questions at him more appropriate for doctors, he flubs around, in no position to handle them. All he needs to do is pass the questions on to the doctors behind him on the stage, but he can't bear to not be the center of attention. So he accuses each reporter of fake news for throwing questions at him that he can't answer. It has been a pitiful scene.

The Virus Chronicles

18 March 2020, and beyond. . .

What is it like to be locked down? I don't know, but I seem to know all sorts of people who are. There was a picture of Times Square in the New York Times today, with a handful of people walking about. When, at any hour of the day, has that piece of pavement ever been so deserted? Two days ago NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio stated that his schools would not close, because if they did, his health care system would come crashing down. Yesterday he closed the schools until “at least” 30 April.

My son had been one of a handful of Googlers still working at his office in Mountain View, California until yesterday. Then his and the surrounding counties declared an emergency mandating that citizens shelter in place. Noah always gets his groceries delivered, but now he must carefully prioritize what he wants, including second and third choices, as well as second and third choice delivery times.

His car repair shop now insists on picking up your car. That's a mechanic's social distancing strategy.

Rose is very strict about what she wants me to do — she's made a study of plagues and flu pandemics. I did persuade my trapping partner Laurie not to look for an in town yoga studio. At seventy-two, she doesn't belong out in town in the era of the current plague.

There has been no hand sanitizer or bleach on store shelves for a week, and little if any toilet paper.

While at Walmart, a cashier told Rose that a customer tried to buy more than the limit of toilet tissue. When told she was over, she threw the tissue at the cashier. The country is changing fast.

Americans are soft. They want their stuff, and their fun, and somehow, someone else should render them safe. I expect there will be fist fights in a few weeks over the discipline of a near national quarantine.

Nearly every college is out, and will reconvene via distance learning for the remainder of the year. But students aren't going home to shelter; they are heading to Florida beaches. Last night cars stuffed full of college age kids were cruising our normally placid Syria. Presumably they were trying out their new found freedom on Shenandoah National Park. Some sheltering in place at home, eh?. These kids are the twerps of our future, waiting to vote for empty suits like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who will promise them free stuff. Maybe she'll keep them safe.

Could this be an upheaval similar to that of World War II? Could the great result be China replacing the West on the world stage? She suffered first and appears to have learnt the proper lessons, unlike the US. Additionally, she has stolen much of our intellectual property, and we have transplanted much of our industrial infrastructure over there. The shop floor is staffed by Chinese, so they have picked our pocket, with our help.

The other important issue was the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Its star was fading as it botched the Hong Kong issue. There was no need to further control the semi autonomous city, but the Party couldn't help itself. The protestors were winning. Now no one remembers the protestors; the party is busy successfully saving the country, and it will come out of things having shown it is a doer, and it knows how to run the country and save the citizenry. If all goes according to plan, the Party will be able to absorb the protesters, having just shown its competence as never before.

Having brought the country back from the brink, the Party can restart the industrial plant while the near prostrate and highly indebted United States tries to crawl out of its virus induced ruin. Thanks to the worst US president in history, China can run its regimented and compliant working class while the United States attempts to rebuild its shattered economy that had begun life as a vibrant but hollowed out monetized service economy.

The United States has been going down hill for some time, but electing the the current fool may have finished us. Yesterday a legitimate reporter asked the President — “What do you say to Americans who are scared ?” The President's reply? “I say you are a terrible reporter.” As the Times reported, “The President has no tolerance for uncertainty.” He needs this thing to be over now. He will believe in any magic potion to get it done. The presidency was supposed to be the victory lap of his life. Instead, like much of the rest of his life, where he left bankruptcy and ruined contractors behind while he dined in gilded splendor, the country is sinking, sheltering in place, while it's reported that his supporters in Congress sold stocks at a profit based on secret briefings just before the danger of the coronavirus was made know to the public. Nothing is yet know of the Kushner family investments, but they always seem to get theirs.

Much as President Trump, and many others persist in thinking otherwise, the stock market is not the economy. The core of the market reflects production done outside the US by foreign workers who produce profits for a very small number of Americans. Given the President's great wealth, and the company he keeps, he and his apologists can be forgiven for not only not understanding this, but for insisting it is not correct.

When all is said and done, and the Coronavirus is finally conquered, it is likely that China will be the world's dominant power, with the only first class industrial plant in the world. We gave it to them. We may own it, but possession in nine-tenths of the law.

The United States will have saddled itself with trillions in debt, both from the pre virus profligacy and the post virus strategy of throwing hastily printed trillions at a population laid low. The US may have to have ceded to China all of her territorial claims. None of the other parties to those claims will likely have the power to dispute them. This means that China effectively owns the UN; there will no longer be juridical equality.

Weighed down by debt, the US will necessarily shrink its military, meaning that it will no longer be a counterweight to China in any theater. The extent of US commitments abroad will be made manifest as those commitments are withdrawn due to lack of US funds, just as once British commitments were withdrawn from League of Nations Mandates.

Europe will have shrunk to an entity that is little more than a small plantation owned by the Eurocrats. The Eurocrats never wanted a vibrant, united Europe; they just wanted power over their subjects. They will likely get it, though whether they will be able to tame the Middle Eastern refugees that will increasingly wash in is doubtful. Eventually they will toss out the Eurocrats. Fair is fair. Little if any of Europe's industries will be able to survive in the face of China's without the latter's forbearance, but the Eurocrats will have those failed industries to regulate anyway, which is all they and their partner labor unions are about.

These are all just possibilities, but very real ones. A periodic changing of the guard is inevitable. The enormous debt and hollowing out of the core in the face of the pandemic is as good a reason as any for it to happen now, just as an enormous debt, a hollowing out of the core, and a confrontation with Nazi Germany were the reason for the British Empire to leave the world stage in the thirties.

To see Donald Trump, the President of the United States, on the stage, contradicting some of the foremost epidemiologists in the world concerning Coronavirus treatment, is to realize that the country has sunk to the level of a third world power. We just happen to have a first world military protecting our crumbling infrastructure.

Sherlock

“A regular meeting of the Culpeper Amateur Radio Association was called to order,” I typed, then stopped, interrupted by a soft, black paw brushing my right leg, distracting me from typing the minutes for the monthly meeting of my ham radio club. Glancing down to see two deep green eyes looking up at me, I pushed my chair back a few inches from the desk, and Sherlock silently hopped onto my lap, purring like a well tuned Ferrari.

She walked back and forth, leg to leg, trying to get settled. Finally, she stopped. “Cross your legs, Gary. Your lap isn't big enough. I need to stretch out while I look at the screen.” Sherlock was like that. She needed to get her footing, then settle down. “Can't you see that I'm busy, Sherlock?” “I know, but I want to watch the screen, and I can't do it if I have to keep walking back and forth to keep my balance.” “OK, but I'm gonna have to uncross them in a little while. You know if Emily comes by she'll be jealous. You'll probably have to leave.” Sherlock was silent. Her sleek, black figure was stretched out on my lap, her eyes fixed on the computer screen, oblivious to my complaint. Occasionally she rubbed her head on my arm in affection as she purred away.

“Play the video. Please play the video.” She raised her head, and began rubbing it on my hand while I tried to type. “The one with the squirrel. Please.” Yes, this cat talks to me, but only when we're alone together. “Sherlock, if I do that, I won't be able to finish these minutes.” “But Gary, you have two screens. Please play the video.”

I opened a new browser window, selected the cat video bookmark, and waited. We both sat through the youTube commercial before the video began. On the screen a squirrel began dashing to a stump to grab a nut, then dashing off the screen in a squirrly manner.

“Please put it on the other screen, Gary.” “But Sherlock, I need to type my document on that screen. It's the one in front of my face.” “Pleeaase?” Grasping the window with my work in it, I pulled it all the way over to the left monitor, and slid the window with the video to the screen directly in front of my face. A black paw snaked over the keyboard to touch the squirrel as it continued to moved around the screen. “Sherlock, I can't work if your leg is covering the keyboard.” There was silence as she continued to rub her paw over the monitor.

Several minutes of quality video time passed in silence. Miss Emily, The Mighty Huntress, tip toed up to my leg. Seeing the black form on my lap, she put her front paws on my thigh, and look into my eyes. I scratched her behind the neck for a moment, but she hopped back down on the rug. Then she hopped back up, that look in her eyes. I uncrossed my legs. “Sorry Sherlock, Miss Emily wants to go out.” “Oh Gary. You'd do anything for her. But for me...” There was a mildly offended tone in her soft, feline voice as she hopped off my lap, raised her tail, and padded away.

The Graduation

Spring wasn't coming easy to the Navy in Newport. Mid April might be officially spring, but the wind off Narragansett Bay is unkind. We of the fourth class of 1975 at the Officer Candidate School did our best to shield ourselves from it as we marched to class each day. This was a low point for a Navy that had been shrinking since 1973, and now had to endure frequent news coverage of the fact that it was so short of sailors that its ships sometimes couldn't get underway. We were to be the bow wave of the new Navy that would fix that.

Along with our three officer candidate classes were three international classes — Iranians, Saudis, and Cambodians. Each of the international classes were kept segregated, for language, cultural, and training requirement reasons. The Saudis and Iranians all drove sports cars when they were permitted off the base. The Cambodians walked or took the bus if they left at all.

Richard Nixon, the President who had “vietnamized” the war that had divided our country for so long, had resigned the previous summer. Our new president, Gerald Ford, had inherited a Far East that his predecessors had set afire, and that he had no desire to be involved with. Each day we saw the Cambodians march down from their own special floor in King Hall, our massive dorm, eyes straight ahead, and go off to study the naval arts that would be of use back in their besieged land.

Saigon and Phnom Penh fell in the same month. My soon to be wife had a Vietnamese room mate. I heard all about what was happening in that country as her room mate tried to get her family out. The fall of Cambodia, on the other hand, passed almost without notice; we were getting ready for commissioning, our final orders, and travel to our ships. But in spite of the fall of Cambodia, the Cambodian officers continued to train, marching to classes with straight faces, never smiling, just as they had never smiled when they had had a country.

One day our company commander mustered us after lunch. The Cambodians were graduating that afternoon. They had no one to come to their ceremony — their country had fallen to the Communists less than a month ago. They had no family in the US, and we would be their appreciative audience.

At 1400 sharp we were in our seats, turned out in our service dress blue uniforms. The Northeast Navy Band played Anchors Aweigh, and two dozen very short naval Officers of a non existent country marched solemnly in, eyes straight ahead. When they were at their seats we all stood; the band played the national anthem of their former country. Then Captain Howard N. Kaye, Commander of the Training Center, and an inspirational officer, gave a short speech that somehow managed to congratulate the young Cambodian officers for having completed the course without referring to the fact that they had no country to return to. Captain Kaye then presented each officer with his diploma, flawlessly pronouncing each name as if he'd spoken Khmer all his life.

Then the Cambodians marched out, eyes straight ahead, to the sounds of what I assume was a well known Khmer naval tune, and we were all dismissed. When the band stopped, there was silence in the gym. No one said a word. The men without a country had gone off to their new life.