Herd Immunity and Culling the Herd

I want to point out that herd immunity is not a thing among humans because there is no way to control human behavior. Herd immunity involves culling the herd and its eugenics, so it is inherently racist and fascist, if you think about it even for a hot minute.

Besides, we are sneakier and probably more selfish than cattle, so it is harder to herd us voluntarily. And who gets to “volunteer” for this grand experiment? Some younger people between 18 and 50 think this is their time and they resent being shut up. We ALL do, but I get it, they have more of a biological drive to socialize in group settings. Plus, they are most of the workforce. And with many people working from home, sometimes with children, it can feel especially oppressive.

This biological imperative seems to be underlying this idea that we lock up everyone over 50 and every younger adult, those in their reproductive years can run wild and free in restaurants, bars, you name it.. They keep the economy going, while we more vulnerable people stay sequestered at home and order in. That is an ageist double standard. We could all wait it out and get over this faster, or boomers can wait while they live in Babylon and we clean up their mess again, just as they did when their kids were younger. Those who survive, will have higher immunity which will benefit the population and our survival as a species, IF immunity is a thing for this virus. At this point in time, it is unclear if immunity works for everyone, or if reactivation is happening to some who initially recover for COVID-19.

But who is going to play and who is going to work to serve the players? Let me guess. This will benefit the rich, for sure, and predominantly white hipsters. Those living on the edge, partying too hard, or those with no healthcare will be culled as well. Can we add universal healthcare as a stipulation before we try this experiment? And how do we keep from these 30-40 somethings spreading around their virus everywhere they go? Will they mop up after themselves? What do you think? Again, less privileged populations, people of color, and those with less education, will be culled disproportionately with none of the perks. There will be flare ups and that is when we will need universal healthcare the most. If we do not, we are being racist, sexist, and classist. It will also mean those of us sequestered will have to wait longer for the self-centered fun-loving party goers to play through.

A hundred years ago (1918-1919) we had a similar situation during the Spanish Flu pandemic, and there were three or four waves in case increases during that time until it finally subsiding leaving millions of dead worldwide. In the fall at the end of World War 1, Americans were quarantining and we were bending the curve downward and then suddenly the war was over and our troops returned and there was dancing in the street, people hugging and kissing in New York Times Square, and suddenly the virus took a dramatic upswing and that's when perhaps 1/3 of the deaths in the U.S. occurred.

So those spending time on the beaches in Southern California right now should stay put and quarantine there, right on the beach, or perhaps in the hotels along the beach.

Please do not go home to Ohio, Nevada, or even inland to other points in California. We don't want you back right until you quarantine for several weeks, because you are going to get sick, maybe die, or at least be a carrier of the virus. Younger adults need who are playing Russian Roulette with their lives need not impose on ours. The million dollar TV ad spots and public service announcements need to pivot and educate these younger adults that even though statistically they may not have as high a probability of dying or contracting a serious case of COVID-19, they are a the largest group of confirmed cases and they may also face serious healthcare risks, and besides, it is unfair and inequitable for them to drive its spread to the rest of us, and to overrun our entire healthcare system.

If you want to volunteer to be in the part that is potentially culled, then you need to do so without endangering us, that is your rationale, after all. If 20-40 somethings insist on continuing to play outside an ignore social distancing, they need to surrender their rights and privileges for using hospitals, and urgent care clinics. And we all need to pray for their children until they come to their senses.

The rest of us do need to acknowledge that some of this is driven by the fact they are the majority of people in the workforce and that some of them don't have a real sanctuary space to go to when they get off work. We also need to do what we can to ensure that those who live with their families can stay virus-free at work and come home safe to their families.

But going out drinking and partying and hanging out? Time to put on your big boy pants and sacrifice some of this brief period play on behalf of the Greater Good

Bill Moyers on Corporate Tax Dodgers

First posted 7/3/14:

"FedEx made $6 billion over the last three years and didn’t pay a dime in federal income taxes, in part because the tax code subsidized its purchase of new planes. This gave FedEx a huge tax subsidy worth $2.1 billion." Set asides brought to you by the same traitors in Congress who force the U.S. Postal Service to pay Congress $5.5 billion in extortion money just to stay in business. Thanks Bill Moyers for the list:   Regarding:  10 Corporate Tax Dodgers You Should Know About billmoyers.com

Thunderstorms?

First posted FB 7/1/14:

Ok, two things for locals, did you hear all the notices on TV today about the thunder storms? You'd think we were about to wash away. The one that ended up getting a great laugh at dinner was when they told us to stay away from windows. Thank goodness they saved lives all over the Truckee Meadows with that one! The other thing is for Renoites--is anyone else annoyed that we now have to pay $2.25 for extra bags or branch bundles that don't fit in the trash? Used to be we'd slip the guys a fiver once in a while, but now the trash folks require a sticker per item and those stickers cost bucks. The guys tell us they are being watched and are afraid to go against their bosses on this. Yesterday I heard all our recycled items are being sent to China (haven't verified it yet). That's been proven to be very bad economically and environmentally, and an inhumane strategy. Did we vote for this unsound business practice, is it another lamebrain plan by our city council, or is it the knuckleheads on the staff that came up with this unsound business practice?

Katrina Vanden Heuvel Calls Out Bill Kristol

First posted FB 6/29/14:

Is “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” burying their own lead? Why isn’t their webpage even giving access to the round table? By far the most newsworthy item on the show was Katrina Vanden Heuvel calling out Bill Kristol: “The balance is off. For example, the President should go to Congress if he is going to take military action in Iraq, and that was a part of your interview, George. And I think, we’re sitting here at a moment, when we’re talking about John Boehner, but the central question about war and peace in this country, there is no military solution to Iraq. And I have to say, sitting next to Bill Kristol, I mean the architects of catastrophe that have cost this country trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, there should be accountability. If there are no regrets for the failed assumptions that have so grievously wounded this nation, I don’t know what happened to our politics and media accountability, but we need it Bill, because this county should not go back to war. We don’t need armchair warriors, and if you feel so strongly, you should, with all due respect, enlist in the Iraqi army.” THANK YOU Ms. Vanden Heuvel for speaking the truth to a megalomaniac neocon warmonger. I can't link you to the Roundtable, because apparently "The Week" staff are in the bathroom hiding. But here is a recent opinion piece by Ms. Vanden Heuvel: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-where-is-the-accountability-on-iraq/2014/06/16/eba0ff24-f597-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html?wprss=rss_katrina-vanden-heuvel Regarding:  Where is the accountability on Iraq? washingtonpost.com

Cuckoos in the News Room

First posted FB 6/29/14:

Hey ABC News, does everything in your world have to be an arms race? Title is more revealing about the real cuckoos working in the media entertainment industry, but still interesting story, if light: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/cuckoo-wages-evolutionary-arms-race/story?id=24352098 Regarding: How the Cuckoo Wages an 'Evolutionary Arms Race' abcnews.go.com

K-college Burnout Over Assessment

First posted 6/28/14:

Interesting, I see some of the same problems in the NSHE system. Thankfully we have made strides at fixing our equity where I teach, but other schools in the system have not. Assessment remains something of a hoop dance, countless new, meaningless hurdles that definitely cause us to loose focus, and have absolutely NOTHING to do with helping our students to succeed. Clearly this is a national phenomenon affecting K-college.  Regarding: A teacher’s tough decision to leave the classroom www.newsleader.com

Shell needs to stop drilling

First posted FB 6/28/14:

Shell Had A String Of Mishaps In The Arctic In 2012 - Sign The Petition To Prevent More Drilling! www.savebiogems.org Ok, let me be clear, I come from a proud family of oil people. My father, uncle and grandfather all worked for Sinclair; all three remained loyal and dedicated to oil until their last day. But my father had diversified quite a bit by the time he retired with a stint as an drilling engineer at the Nevada Test Site, and he was one of the first geothermal engineers in the U.S. and for the State of Nevada. Our generation, all of us, probably owe our standard a living and college educations of our entire generation to the oil business. But its done. Any oil company that has not figured out its time to diversify and transition to solar, wind and any other sources of cleaner, more renewable forms of energy that our engineers can develop is lost in a time warp. The time for the oil industry has come and soon will be a thing of the past. Time to evolve. Mother Earth has done everything possible to make this clear to all thinking humans.    Regarding;   Shell Had A String Of Mishaps In The Arctic In 2012 - Sign The Petition To Prevent More Drilling! www.savebiogems.org

The View; Who Cares?

First posted in FB 6/27/14:

So Sheri and somebody I've never heard of named Jenny (I think) are leaving The View and their FB page asks who should replace them. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. How can they ever replace the chemistry of a cranky, loveable renown comic, a bitchy conservative blonde married to a football player, a ditzy Christian single Mom, and Barb? Well, the obvious answer is don't. Find a new mix. The other obvious answer is another question: who cares?

Burpee Seeds?

First posted on FB 6/25/14:

In principle, I am not opposed the concept of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). But we should have the right to know the pedigree of our food so that we can responsibly manage our own health and welfare. Frankly, virtually ALL of the varieties and many of the species that we love today would not be possible without genetic modification modification. This is a very basic tenet of understanding anthropogenics and our role as creators and stewards of the planet. We are indebted to Darwin and Wallace for our first steps toward a unifying theory of evolution. Both were naturalists on independent voyages sailing the world in the mid-1800s. Their field observations on their respective voyages combined with their collective knowledge of contemporary breeding experiments of domesticated species of plants and animals led to their revolutionary theory of Natural Selection. Another key hallmark leading to our basic understand of simple genetics stems from Gregor Mendel's extremely important breeding experiments on peas. These tests also occurred in the mid-1800s. For myself. Its hard to fathom what our environments and our food would look like without their early steps. My concerns with GMOs arise when geneticists, breeders and chemists get into the lab and cross tobacco genes with tomatoes, are add insecticide and pesticide genes into potatoes. I believe we should all have a right to know what is in our food and in the air, water, soil and lifeforms around us. Period.   Regarding:  Can You Trust Burpee Seeds? www.chicagonow.com

Loaded Gun in the Toy Aisle

First posted on FB 6/25/14:

I have to say I found this on the Open Carry Texas page with this statement: "‪#‎guncontrolextremists‬ just won't get it through their sycophantic heads that criminals don't obey laws. This felon had an illegal gun in Target, but these anti-gun zealots are bullying Target to subject their customers to being victims of these criminals without the ability to defend themselves." Now I read the article and I got a whole other sense of what went down. I suspect the man was guilty of being in South Carolina while Black. If you look at his "felon" charge it could easily have been that he got in a fight and then the cops piled on the charges. He seem to have been lost in the system for four months ended up with a felony. So there was apparently a man seen in the vicinity of the toy section who was "black man walking around...appeared nervous and fidgety." Well, so parts of South Carolina can be as racist as some parts of Texas? What a surprise. Finally, please notice how the term alleged is nowhere in the title or the story. The case is ironclad because "Myrtle Beach Police have positively identified their suspect" which smacks of...well, enough said. Come one Hollywood, could we please have a couple of films to drive public sentiment and with it send these racist gun-toting idiots back into their holes? Man Who Left Loaded Gun in Target's Toy Aisle Identified - BuzzPo buzzpo.com

Ultima Ratio Reagan

First posted on FB 6/25/14:

To the neocons who want us to attack Iraq or Syria, or wherever it is today, I dedicate this poem by Howard Nemerov (1920-1991), born in NYC, who serve first as a pilot first in the Canadian Air Force in 1941 and then with U.S. Army Air Force in 1943 (the latter was also my father's branch of the service, although they served in different theaters).

 The poem is entitled: "Ultima Ratio Reagan":

"The reason we do not learn from history is 
Because we are not the people who learned last time. 
Because we are not the same people as them 
That fed our sons and honor to Vietnam 
And dropped the burning money on their trees, 
We know that we know better than they knew, 
And history will not blame us if once again 
The light at the end of the tunnel is the train."

Pro-fracking NPR

First posted on FB 6/25/14:

NPR had business report correspondent today telling us there is more crude oil in this country than there is refinery capacity and we need to build up capacity to be able to export it. It was an unveiled profracking/propipeline propoganda. Its all about oil, they said, the answer to all our problems. So its not just the warmongers who are neocons today, its public radio.

Keystone

First posted 6/18/14:

A lot of Americans still don't even know the corporate plan is to gut and pollute our continent in order to ship oil overseas. Meanwhile Monsanto is gaining control over much of our food supply and Nestle's is privatizing our clean water. Many don't care, others don't want to know. This is a struggle for our sovereignty, our basic way of life as free citizens and our human need to provide healthy, secure, viable lives for our children. We have to stop this corporate takeover of Congress--both Dems and GOPs are complicit. We need to find another path. That's why so many are leaving the two sellout parties and so many young people refuse to partake of the sellout parties.

Regarding 350.org FB photo 6/3/14:

https://www.facebook.com/350.org/photos/a.136077452707.110998.12185972707/10152424687857708/?type=1

Attention Target Shoppers!

First posted on 6/12/14:

Attention Target shoppers! Ok if the open carry nutbunch in the diaper section of the store wasn't enough, when I wrote a check in Target today and the cashier asked me if I minded if he scanned my drivers license into their computer. Thanks for asking and NO THANKS! Hey, we know how Target protects our privacy and how secure their database is. Driver License in NV provides the following: driver's license number (of course), a reasonably accurate photo ID, birth date, physical address, demographics (gender, hair, eye color, height, weight mas o menos), signature, etc.). What could possibly go wrong?

Reich on Private Prisons

First posted FB 6/10/14:

I almost shared/posted a piece on how our number of prison inmates has grown 700% so that capitalism has a slave labor force, but on the flip side of that is a more positive note moving forward. We need to help every young person get the job skills and more importantly the liberal education they need to be productive members of society and to be good citizens, to be able to raise families in a safe and healthy environment. Thank you President Obama! Congress, won't you come to the party too? We're watching, waiting, taking names and we vote! Regarding Robert Reich 6/10/14 post : https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/809325925746672

Student Loan Refnancing

First posted on FB 6/8/14:

Student Loan Refinancing Floor Speech youtube.com I used to be a skeptic about this issue. Heck I took out loans and paid them back. But today is not like it was 25 years ago when I was graduated. There will be no future for our young college graduates, they will not be able to enter their chosen professions and raise young families without refinancing. Please explain to me why the banks loan each other money at a tiny fraction of what our young people borrow to go to college. I dare you to do it with a straight face. Let's pay it forward for our collective future.   Student Loan Refinancing Floor Speech youtube.com https://www.facebook.com/julia.hammett.5/posts/10204074811569628

Yusuf Inducted to R&R Hall of Fame

First posted on FB 6/8/14:

Congratulations to Yusuf / Cat Stevens for your induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! I still remember listening to your haunting "Moon Shadow" on a summer evening long ago--a dreary, haunting song for sure, but what teenager couldn't relate? We all felt your presence Cat, that you were one of us. I remember just where I was, the feel of the cool, still, desert night, bright stars and a crescent moon with bright city lights away on the horizon. I won't say exactly where we were on that lonely night, sitting in a circle on a lawn of cool grass, because we might be blamed for that big hole in the chain linked fence just behind us. So I'll simply say we were visiting "Gary Dexter" which was code for our inner circle of adolescents in the City of Sin so many years ago ;) Today we can see how we've all changed, Yusuf. Some of those who listened to your songs didn't make it to the new millennia. Two of my dearest high school friends were lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic halfway between then and now. For those of us still here, today is a time of reflection about those years at the "edge of darkness" as we ponder what we may leave behind, "dreaming about the world as one" and how we can help make our planet and our species whole. So Yusuf, I pray moving forward you and I are (praise be to Allah) more inclined to sing of hope than loss as we ask our brothers and sisters to "jump upon the Peace Train."     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLG91tOLPdQ&list=RDgLG91tOLPdQ#t=21

CEOs cost more than Workers

First posted on FB 6/8/14:

Basic math: the more upper management is paid, the less there is to pay the employees who actually produce value for the corporation, be it manufactured or processed items or services. Meanwhile we end up subsidizing these same greedy corporations with our tax dollars through tax breaks, offsets, and a safety net for their employees who often can't make ends meet. This model is not economically viable or sustainable, and it risks our long term national security. It makes a tiny group uber rich while exploiting the rest of us. We need to speak out against subsidizing this failed, dysfunctional model. Tomorrow President Obama will announce an Executive Order to help college students to get out from under their suffocating debt. The Senate is schedule to debate legislation to put it into law, but characteristically Republicans are against it because it is funded by reducing tax breaks for the uber rich. Time to spam your Senators' communications lines: Senator Harry Reid and Senator Dean Heller, whose side are you on? Will you support a few fat cats who will spend the rest of they and their children's lives in luxury, no matter what happens? Or will you support our country by helping young Americans who are pursuing professional careers to get out of debt so they can help us grow our national economy? Will you help to give the younger generation a more promising future or will you continue to enable our economic decline?

Regarding the image and article on Jobs With Justice FB page 6/4/14: 

https://www.facebook.com/jobswithjustice/photos/a.434191135678.209185.47712360678/10152156156300679/?type=1

Kiribati is drowing

First posted on FB 6/8/14:

Well Kiribati is an island the 1% won't buy up to seek refuge during the eminent sea level rise, because it will be uninhabitable in 20 years. Global climate change has already shrunk their habitable space, which in turn has triggered issues of overpopulation, clean water shortages, and their ability to raises their own food, etc. Fareed Zakaria spoke with Kiribati President Anote Tong today. I've linked to an abbreviated version of the interview. One of the most profound things I heard President Tong say was that the science indicates its already too late for them. Already they've purchased land in Fiji and eventually they'll have to emigrate. Imagine having to abandon your homeland because of the greed, ignorance and indifference of people on the other side of the world. This time its not a sloth trying to cross a busy road as tourists watch and photograph its peril while telling themselves they'll step in before its too late. This time is a society on the verge of extinction because we can't be bothered to change, because it doesn't affect us directly--yet.

Will this nation disappear off the map? globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com   http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/07/will-this-nation-disappear-off-the-map/

Letter for DNCC

First posted on FB 6/7/14: Had to share this, too funny. Maybe they didn't see my name because they spelled it wrong? lol And the irony is that when you click on the link it skips through to a donate now page. Yeah, leave it to the Democrats to make this into a scam to score some cash! Demand Sensible Campaign Finance Reform dccc.org Nancy Pelosi info@obamabiden.com via bounce.bluestatedigital.com 10:15 AM (38 minutes ago) You are receiving this message as an Obama for America supporter. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is solely responsible for the content of this message. You’re missing out on history: 491,373 people and counting have added their names calling for a Constitutional amendment to end Citizens United. But -- we don’t see your name. This is your chance to strike a crushing blow to a system that allows the Koch brothers and special interests to buy elections and drown out the voices of regular Americans. This is your chance to stand up for our democracy. Name: Juila Hammett PETITION SIGNATURE: PENDING >> We’re just 8,627 signatures short of hitting our goal of 500,000 signatures. Will you add your name now? http://dccc.org/Stop-Citizens-United signed Nancy Pelosi Hey, p.s. to Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman, do you remember how Obama blew off his gentlemen's agreement with John McCain to live by the Campaign Finance Reform rules as soon as he realized he could make more money from small donors? Yeah well, I do. If you want any credibility on this issue, you better lose the obamabiden.com branding.