Recent Works

• • #44
  • More COVID 19 reports
  • This is what I get for enforcing the 'mini' part of my mini blog! 2000 characters isn't enough for me right now. I should extend it. Maybe after I figure out pagination with php.
    
    Anyway, how has the landscape changed? People have adapted. There are still fervent anti-maskers. Half the people in denial are just like 'oh well I think I got it back in February so I'm probably okay' without getting tests to prove it. Nearly everyone in CO has a mask and most are wearing them properly, which slows the spread somewhat. Unfortunately the refusal to mandate a travel ban on Thanksgiving means far too many people traveled, and now far too many will die.
    
    I hear of more and more people catching it every day. No one close to me has died but relatives of friends of friends have succumbed...a family friend's brother died, and my mom's friend's best friend's brother has also died. My mom's boss's father-in-law died a few months back.
    
    I see the numbers. 3000 a day or more deaths, with even more hospitalizations. ICUs at their limit. Makeshift wards created in parking garages and elsewhere. My dad screams that people are living in fear when they're probably not gonna die. But it is not ourselves we fear for...I've told him as much. This reveals how selfish he believes all of us are...and how selfish he now is.
    
    My class this month has gone virtual so I won't expose my students. We're all looking forward to winter break.
  • 12/12/2020 @ 11:42am MST (America/Denver)
• • #43
  • Political rifts
  • Due to rampant propaganda, my dad spends all his time stumping for the GOP and Trump. It's a little strange since he doesn't exactly fit the demographic, being a (legal) immigrant, non-white, forced into early retirement, the rest of his family is against all of that, etc.
    
    We can't talk politics around him because it inevitably leads to nasty fights where he starts shouting at us, saying the same 4 propaganda lines over and over again. I recorded part of the last fight...I don't know what I plan to do with the recording. It's a snapshot of the divide within families, but it's also a personal tragedy in its own right. The fight isn't even about politics, but about COVID 19...(before my dad was diagnosed) the issue has been so politicized that it triggers the same response in him. It's such a struggle to disprove every single line he trots out because he's yelling and doesn't listen and discounts half the evidence because of the logic taught to him by Fox News and co.
    
    He gets on Facebook and insults the rest of our family, not personally, but by ranting about stupid liberals and absolutely not making the connection...if you do force him to do so, he eventually concludes we just don't accept him for who he is, rather than realizing he's actively insulting and alienating people with his rhetoric. It's difficult.
    
    If you're wondering, this indoctrination has been happening for years. I remember him listening to insane right-wing talk radio on the drive to drop me off at my high school every morning. We got into arguments about it to the point where he finally just switched to music when I was in the car. Clearly he never stopped.
  • 12/12/2020 @ 11:27am MST (America/Denver)
• • #42
  • Predictions
  • It's close to the end of 2020 so I'm going to throw my predictions for the next 2-4 years up here. I've had these for a while but may as well write them down.
    
    - Historical precedence tells me this pandemic will continue for another year or two at minimum. Given our terrible response to it as a country, it may end up being another 2 years rather than 1. So, this situation will last til 2022, if I am being optimistic. 2024 if I'm not.
    - GOP will dissolve into infighting and lose power. Democrats will take over but eventually split into two parties. Something like this has happened before in history (see: the fate of the Whig party), but the reason I predict this is because Dems have been taking on the conservatives jumping ship from GOP (due to Trump/extremism), but in the end there will still be differences in ideology so the refugees and right-leaning/moderate Dems will choose to form their own party (after more infighting).
    - The social revolution continues
    
    The Pfizer vaccine has been approved by the FDA so doses will start being doled out on Sunday/Monday to our most vulnerable.
  • 12/12/2020 @ 11:18am MST (America/Denver)