Geoff Nicholson

I mean, this is fine, right?

https://covidactnow.org/us/new_mexico-nm/county/bernalillo_county/chart/5

Right?

When I made my first posts on COVID ten months ago, we assumed that the CDC would be heeded, test-and-trace would be effective, and spread would be minimized.  Three months in, and we were one of the worst-affected countries because 'belief' in the virus became a political marker. Not accecptance, not mitigation, belief in the actual existience of the disease. The Know-Nothing attitude became fundamental to some people's personal 'brand', and an extremely vocal minority wrecked things for all of us.

After writing a paper about how other countries handled the outbreak, and reading up on both positive and negative outcomes, the frustration has caused me to vent my spleen multiple times, and to opine that "This is the worst group project I've ever worked on", and I maintain my disgust. Enabled by the former regime, this proudly-ignorant mob continues to infect both the body politic, as well as the body physik.

For those of you interested in keeping up to date in the numbers, here's my go-to datasource. The positive information is that from a low two months ago (when all the states were dark-red), we're down to only most states being lightish-red. There are even counties which are green... but is that because testing is negative, or because testing is negligible?

Stay home, wash your hands, and wear a mask. Vaccinate when you can, and we can maybe (Maybe?) be clear by f'n October? If we loose another Halloween to inaction... I might go spare.

Greetings, and well met to all who come by these letters. I write you this night from the ravages of this modern plague to exhort you to spend this spring break not forlorn but recharging. Take the opportunity to reach out to your community and check in on each other. The distance we maintain physically need not be absolute isolation.

And while the coming weeks bring uncertainty and confusion, take heart in the philosophy of the Stoics: the fear of pain is more damaging than the pain itself. When you have taken the time to think on the source of the discomfort you notice that the nature of the problem is ever-changing. Some days it's worse, other days it is better.

Advice from ancient Egypt:

1. Be merry all your life

2. Toil no more than is required

3. Nor cut short the time alloted to pleasure

4. Don't waste time on daily cares beyond providing for your household

5. When wealth comes, follow your heart. Wealth does no good if you're glum

6. Great is Law (Maat).

7. If you are a man of authority, be patient when listening to words of a petitioner. Do not dismiss him until he has completely unburdened himself of what he had planned to say.

8. Injustice exists in abundance, but evil can never succeed in the long run.

9. Do not gossip in your neighborhood, because people respect the silent

10. To listen is better than anything, from it is born perfect love

11. As for the ignorant man who doesn't listen, he accomplishes nothing. He equates knowledge with ignorance, useless with harmful. He does everything detestable, so people get angry with him each day.

12. A perfect word is hidden more deeply than precious stones. It is to be found near servants working at mill-stone.

13. Only speak when you have something worth saying.

14. Love your wife with passion

15. A woman with happy heart brings equilibrium

16. Those who continually lust after women, none of their plans ever succeed

17. Do not blame those who are childless, do not criticize them for not having any, do not boast about having them yourself

18. Do not repeat a slanderous rumor, do not listen to it

19. May your heart never be vain because of what you know. Take counsel from the ignorant as well as the wise

20. He who has a great heart has a gift from God. He who obeys his stomach obeys the enemy

22. Teach your disciple words of tradition. Act as a model for children, that they may find in you the understanding & justice of every heart, since man is not born wise

23. Punish with principle, teach meaningfully. Act of stopping evil leads to lasting establishment of virtue.

The Maxims of Ptahhotep, composed by the Vizier Ptahhotep during 24th century BCE (76th Century HE)

A recent post by Lost Art Press has a quote from the 1930s which talks about the power of knowledge sharing, and the quote which drew my eye was this:

But hoarded knowledge can never be as productive as knowledge which is shared. It is not the man who warns off enquirers with a mutter of “trade secrets” and a “please-keep-off-the-grass” expression who will keep abreast of the times, but the man who will readily exchange experiences, discuss, and, when need be, give guidance to others. (Lost Art Press).

This reminds me of the reason behind what I do with the Maker community; we learn by sharing. Whether it's Open Source software, or tutorials on the internet, or dreaded group-projects at school or work, collaboration is key.

Yes, there will be slackers; yes, there is a whiff of "perfect world" thought here, but... it is possible. So share some of your power with a friend, because Knowlege is Power!

"and for all these reasons, I have decided to stop you.... and burn your village to the ground"

For my friends in the Medievalist forums, a list of 100 books about the diversity of the Middle Ages:

https://bookriot.com/2018/01/04/100-must-read-middle-ages/

From the blurb:

The ideas we tend to have about the Middle Ages are mostly based on how the time period has been interpreted through fantasy fiction and games, and the romanticizing of the era by intellectuals, scholars, politicians, and artists in the nineteenth century.

These interpretations have given rise to a view of the Middle Ages as an entirely Christian society in western Europe, populated only by white people, and with few influences coming from outside.

...

This view is inaccurate.

Yes, the Middle Ages was a time period of repression, oppression, persecution, warfare, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, and misogyny. But so is our time period.

Therefore, it bears repeating that:The Middle Ages was an age of diversity.

Pan-religious, pan-ethnic, pan-global. Yes, Western Europe went provincial, puritanical, and dark. But there was plenty of the rest of the world to go around. I'm particularly fond of the descriptions of the European world by a travelling Islamic ambassador in #13; I'm interested to read #16; #23 is already on my reading list; I'm curious about #40 and #66.

Bear me out... I think I've figured something out, and it had everything to do with license plates.

On the way back from lunch, I saw someone with one of my states "Patriot" vanity plates, and a bumper sticker supporting a Republican candidate.  And I mused to myself... why don't I ever see patriot plates with Bernie stickers?  And I struck on a dichotomy which I hadn't noticed before: your average 'patriot' supports the IDEA of America where your vocal leftish people the IDEAL of America.  

The right envisions Mayberry where the government is well meaning but buffoonish, and they go home at night.

The left envisions the government doing what the constitution says it ought and takes care of their neighbors.

The right wants an idyllic world, where we're the best and outsiders don't get it, but that's fine because we're the best.

The left wants the ideals which are enshrined in the constitution applied to everyone equally, and we are still the land of the immigrant and those yearning masses can be free.

And then I realised: I don't think that Mayberry ever had to worry about the Cold War going hot, despite being a show from the late fifties and early sixties.  You know, when the world was feeling exetensial dread at the possiblity of total annhiliation when Kruschev felt that Nixon was looking at him funny(or vice versa), and decided to end it all.  According to twenty minutes on Wikipedia (everyone's favourite reliable source of knowledge), there was only one episode which has anything to do with the Soviets, and they intentionally made the show feel like it was in the 30s (you know, when America First was last popular).

And because Mayberry didn't live in the existential-horror world of the 60s spy thriller, (Len Deighton, John le Carre, et al) where the reader knew that if the good guy screwed up, the world was really in peril from unknowable horrors.  They never had to worry about consequences: it was all a minor misunderstanding, or the baddies would get shipped out of town never to be heard from again.

Mayberry intentionally ignores the outside world, and that's what's wrong with the world today.

Or that's my thoughts.

The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

You will not be able to stay at home, chummer
You will not be able to jack in, crash IC, and make cred
You will not be able to loose yourself in sims
or burn your brain on BTLs
Because the Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun
The revolution will not be brought to you by Weapons World
with two full clips thrown in
The revolution will not star Holly Brighton
panzer-blastin' into Denver to challenge
Ghostwalker for the right to nuke Atzlan
tossing powerballs and lightning bolts into ravenous blood spirits
The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

The Revolution will not be brought to you by Tir Tangire
starring Rinelle ke'Tesrae and Ehran the Scribe
nor Ryan "Drake" Mercury and Kid bloody Stealth
The Revolution will not give trolls smaller horns and
the Revolution will not make mil-spec gear easy to get
The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

There will not be Matrix Overwatch when the corps collapse
as the SINless use their 'purchasing power'
to get their fix quicker
KSAF will not break the story 2.3 minutes later or report live from the scene
The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

There will not be Trideo of Red Sams
gunning you down in the streets
There will not be trideo of Lone Star 
gunning you down in the streets
There will not be trideo of Big-D
liberating the SINners
There will not be stills or flatvid of
Dodger walking through the matrix with Megara on his arm
in matching ebon and silver icons that they have been saving
for just the proper occasion

NERPS, Better-Than-Life and Full-X sims
will no longer be so damnned relevant,
and no will care if Deus compiles the Network
because the world will be saying that the Night of Rage was kinder,
The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun

There will be no highlights on Shadowland, posted by
Captain Chaos, The Chromed Accountant, or Fastjack,
and no stills of Nadja Davidar giving a slot.
The theme song will not be popular in Club Penumbra,
no matter how jazzed the patrons are.
It won't be performed by a troll thrash band, or
heard at Dante's Inferno; it won't be cached at the Nexus.
The revolution will not be a Shadowrun

The revolution will not be right back after a 
message from Mitsuhama, the Universal Brotherhood, 
or anything corporate.  You won't have to worry
about devil rats in your bedroom, a Shedim on the street,
or a Bug in your toilet bowl
The Revolution will not go better with Rolling Rock
The Revolution will not save you from Gaia
The Revolution will put you in captain's chair mode.

The Revolution will not be a Shadowrun, will not be a Shadowrun
will not be a Shadowrun, will not be a Shadowrun.
The Revolution will be no chip-dream, chummer.
The Revolution will still be live.

This is an homage to both Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution will not be Televised", and inspired by "The Revolution will not be an AOL Keyword". The content inside comes from Shadowrun, a cyberpunk-like game set in 2060, with elves, dwarves, trolls, magic and high-tech. Originally published 12 Jun 2004

Lost another one. I forget I don't have versioning