Masks Are Marvelous

So I thought I would post a link to this story, “Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve. We should all wear them in public” by Jeremy Howard, which recently appeared in the Washington Post. It is important, because there have been some snotty articles appearing in the press lately about how Do It Yourself face masks are worse than useless and you ought to just stop trying to make or use them.

Except...that isn’t exactly true. Yes, it is accurate to say that a DIY mask can’t take the place of a hospital grade N95 mask. But, medical professionals can wear a cloth mask over an N95 and thus extend its useful life span.

Also, just because a DIY mask isn’t hospital-grade, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. As Howard notes, outside a medical facility, in public, DIY masks can do a great deal to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and other diseases. “Studies have documented definitively that in controlled environments like airplanes, people with masks rarely infect others and rarely become infected themselves,” he says, “while those without masks more easily infect others or become infected themselves.”

So, if you’re making cloth masks for others, or if you’re wearing one to go to the store or wherever, don’t stop. You could actually be saving lives...including, maybe, your own. 

***

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Please Don’t WIC It Away

Okay, this one is quick but urgent. Martha just pointed out to me this piece by Marissa Higgins on DailyKos, “The real reason to leave WIC-eligible grocery items on the shelf as you stock up amid coronavirus.”

WIC, of course, is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Ms. Higgins further defines it as, “a federal program for low-income women with children under 5 years old. WIC generally covers eggs, milk, fortified foods, peanut butter, beans, tofu, fruits, vegetables, canned fish, and more. Women who don’t breastfeed are able to receive iron-fortified infant formula. People can also use WIC assistance at participating farmers’ markets to buy fresh produce.”

Which is all to say that it very, very important. For a lot of people, particularly children, it determines whether they have anything to eat...of not.

The kicker? WIC approved products are disappearing from grocery stores, along with everything else that people can scoop up in an age of panic buying. That means that those WIC approved items may not be available for people who really, really need them.

So, suggests Higgins, if you see the WIC symbol on a product, or see that it is “WIC approved,” and you aren’t yourself in the WIC program, consider putting it back. Someone else may very well need it more than you.

And that someone could be a baby...

***

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Just A Link To My Man Milton

Like it says, this is just a link to the blog of one of my favorite writers, Milton Brasher-Cunningham. Check out this recent posting on "Don't Eat Alone."

lenten journal: help somebody

 

***   Please check out my new book, Padre, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father. https://www.amazon.com/Padre-Island-Michael-Jay-Tucker/dp/1792646909

Government Isn’t Like A Business (you idiot!)

Fascinating piece on the Brookings Institute site this week, “Trump’s failed presidency” by Elaine Kamarck. In it, the talented Dr. Kamarck looks at the Trump administration and asks why it is coming apart so spectacularly.

Her answer? Well, you know how high-powered business executives and corporate CEOs and Hedge Fund managers will so often say that government would work “if only you ran it like a business?” Trump and his enablers believe that dictum as an article of faith. They want a government that would be efficient, profitable, and most of all, small enough “to drown in a bathtub.”

The kicker? Government isn’t like a business.  In particular, says Kamarck, a government has to be ready to deal with the unexpected. A government, she says, “...is in the business of preparing for low-probability events.” Things, that is, like wars, natural disasters, and, now, pandemics.

And in preparing for those-low probability but high-risk events, the Trump Administration has, she notes, “been especially inept ... from the beginning.” As a result, we have a modern plague that could have been prevented, or at least mitigated, but which wasn’t, because Trump et al never suspected it would actually happen.

The long-term take-away, I think, from Dr. Kamarck’s article, and from the Trump Administration in general, is that the run-the-government-like-a-business crowd is dangerous...every bit as dangerous as coronavirus itself.

For those who believe in such maxims, and who would put them into practice, suffer from too deep a faith in their own omni-competence.

Or to put it another way...from hubris.

Which goes before a fall, and makes the tragedy all too Greek.

~~~

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Covid-19 & The Triumph Of Trump

So I had an interesting experience today, and it involved coronavirus. No, I haven’t got it, and I don’t think I’ve been exposed to it. But I have seen the power of the fear it commands.

We had gone to a local Walmart to get a few things. We found what we needed, fortunately, but then we drifted into the aisle that was supposed to contain cleaning goods. You know of course, what we found. The shelves were utterly empty. Bleach, disinfecting wipes, antibacterial sprays...all gone. All purchased and carried away in great piles by people who will never be able to use all of it, but who fought for its possession as though their lives depended on it.

It is frightening to see such fear. To see panic in all its horrid glory.

Don’t get me wrong.   Covid-19 is dangerous, and potentially deadly -- certainly, it is a threat to those of us who are over sixty. As you know, the virus seems to be sparing the young and targeting the old. (Yes, my dear Millennials, the Universe works in mysterious ways. Your vengeance on Boomers seems to be at hand.) And certainly, it is much, much more dangerous than Trump is saying.

Yet, fear, too, is like an infection. It, too, can spread and do dreadful things in the process. Thus the panic buying...and who knows what else?...in my local store.

And, strangely enough, it is Trump who is partly responsible for the great and dangerous Fear. He is making an effort to discount the threat of coronavirus. He is saying that it is no worse than the flu, and that reports otherwise are (dreadful term) fake news.

The Triumph Of Death

But there’s the rub. Even his most ardent supporters know he is lying. In a wonderful of Orwellian doublethink, they believe and disbelieve him. They mock liberals for their fear of the virus, and yet prepare themselves for the triumph of death. Recall that many of them have been eagerly expecting the end of the world for years, and have been prepping for it all this time. How heartening it must be to feel the day is here at last.

And thus Trump does the worst that he can do. He directs his deplorables to simultaneously ignore medical advice, and to over-react.  So it is that you must stand in awe of the man. He is a quadruple threat. In one fell swoop, he establishes four distinct evils...

Fever and fear. Ignorance and arrogance.

***

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

To Senator Warren, With Admiration

I saw today that Elizabeth Warren has ended her bid for the presidency. This saddens me. I did not vote for her in the primary, but I greatly respect her, and I think she would have made a terrific president.

Also, on a somewhat more primitive level, I would have loved to have seen her debate Trump. Her performance in taking down Michael Bloomberg was wonderful enough, but her utter evisceration of 45 would have been glorious to behold.

But, I suppose, she made the right choice given her performance on Super Tuesday. (Where were her voters?  Why did they not cast their ballots for her? It is a mystery to me -- just as I am bewildered by some of the young people who were so energetic in their support for Bernie Sanders on the web, but who somehow declined to actually appear at the polls.)

Still, she remains a Senator, and an intense pain to Wall Street and many rabid defenders of the status quo. We’ve not seen the last of her, I’m sure. As my wife put it to me this afternoon, she will have her place in our national history...and in our future. 

So, brava, Senator Warren! You have fought the good fight, and you will continue to do so.

I very much look forward to recounting your victories.

***

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)


Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.


  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Hero Li Wenliang

Note: This originally appeared on 25 Feb, 2020, on LiberalResistance.net. I reproduce it here with the kind permission of the editors. 



I continue to be fascinated (albeit with a chill fascination) the spread of coronavirus in China, and from there to the rest of the world. I shudder to think what’s coming, and hope that, somehow, the virus gets stopped before it goes any further.

So far, the only thing that I find remotely positive about the disease is that it seems to be sparing children.(1) Unlike, say, the great “Spanish” Influenza of 1918, which apparently targeted younger people, the coronavirus seems to leave the young alone, while hitting those of us who are older harder. As a grandfather, that reassures me a wee bit. At least I know that I may fall, but my granddaughter may be safe. Or at least safer.

Okay, but the other thing which interests me is China’s response to the problem. Like most authoritarian regimes, it has both advantages and disadvantages in this situation. The advantage is that it can impose strict measures (like fairly brutal quarantines) that simply wouldn’t fly in a more democratic society.

The disadvantage is that it is morbidly concerned about its image, both at home and abroad. So, it tends to shut down the flow of information about the disease, even when that censorship puts lives at risk.

Maybe the most telling example of this is in the treatment of Li Wenliang, the rather heroic doctor who tried to warn his country (and the world) about the danger, and for his efforts was arrested for spreading “alarmist” rumors — which only goes to prove just how well, alas, Henrik Ibsen knew human character, particularly at its worst.

Dr. Li died of the pandemic he tried so hard to prevent. But he did get, in a sense, his revenge. According to at least some reports, his story has spread wide and far in China, in spite of the best efforts of the authorities to control it. (Seems that disease and information are equally difficult to control.)

In fact, according to one article I saw on CNN, Dr. Li’s case has very, very seriously damaged the government’s reputation with its people. (2) Thus, by trying to control its image, the government managed to injured its image, perhaps beyond any hope of recovery.  Who knows? It might even result in a genuine crisis of legitimacy. It probably won’t bring down the government all by itself, but, in combination with other problems…

Maybe there’s a lesson there, for governments, and, indeed, for us all. One of the central premises of the Enlightenment, and science, is that the free flow of information is a good thing, and that attempts to prevent that freedom — however tempting it might be — become in the end destructive…even fatal.

The Enlightenment, and science, have not been popular of late. For both Right, and yes (let’s confess), the Left, it has seem so more much satisfying to rely instead on faith, received wisdom, “alternative facts,” and sophist mumblings about “postmodernism.”

Yet, here’s the lesson of the day, as provided by the coronavirus and the martyrdom of Dr. Li:  facts may be disruptive. They may be economically inconvenient.  They may clash with your faith. They may be politically incorrect. But …they are inescapable and immutable. And when you ignore them, they bite you.

Hard.



1) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/11/the-coronavirus-appears-to-be-sparing-one-group-of-people-kids.html
2) https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/asia/china-doctor-death-censorship-intl-hnk/index.html

~~~

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.