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Coronavirus, are we overreacting?

I worked in Information Technology for 30 years.  I was actually on call December 31, 1999.  Remember Y2K?  Lots of folks felt like there had been a tremendous overreaction to this potential problem.  What most people did not see was the 3 years before the change from 1999 to 2000. There was an immense amount of work that went on changing the date routines of uncountable computer programs on mainframe systems.  This is when Indian programmers first started coming to this country in large numbers, to work on the Y2K issue.  The work was done, and there were very few glitches across the computer world. People then had the luxury of making fun of the whole Y2K phenomenon.

What I am trying to figure out is, are we overreacting to the coronavirus pandemic?   The truth is we will not really know until Continue reading “Coronavirus, are we overreacting?”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #8,913

yeah I know you did not ask!

I personally am not feeling safe with the party of science deniers managing a medical/health crisis.

I feel like I am watching a train wreck about to happen in slow motion. The train engineer is stepping on the gas after denying there was another train coming his way on the same track.

I feel like the real national emergency is the Gospodin Trump administration’s ignorance, incompetence  and greed.

We absolutely must vote these bozos out of office.

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Quote for the Day — Shakespeare

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool,” ~~ Shakespeare

 

 

A little lagniappe:  The Dunning-Kruger effect, or why the ignorant think they’re experts

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #8,193

yeah I know you did not ask!

For various reasons of recent personal experiences I have been thinking about wealth inequality again, here and abroad.   I have stated my stance on this several ways, but I have come up with what for me was a new twist.

I really do not resent anyone being extraordinary rich.  What I do resent is the mass of people that are suffering from crushing poverty.

While the first part of the equation will argue with you about it, the two are tied are together.  You cannot have the one without the other.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but what we are doing now here and abroad is not working.   We need to make sure everyone has a piece of pie before we are passing out seconds and… or millionths to selected individuals.

 

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #6,467

yeah I know you did not ask!

In the middle of the last century when I was but a wee lad, there was fad of stuffing VW Beetles.  A group of young people, generally of high school or college age, would try to see how many of themselves they could put inside a Volkswagen Beetle.

According to Señor Google and The Guinness World Records site:

“The most people crammed into an old style Volkswagen Beetle is 20 and was achieved by the Asbury University Emancipation Project (USA) at the Lexington Rescue Mission in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, on 9 December 2010. A 1964 Beetle was used for the attempt, which was organised to draw attention to human trafficking.”

Obviously later than the middle of last century, but fads carry on, especially if there are world records to be had.

The reason I was thinking about this is that it appears that Gospodin Trump is trying to recreate this fad in his own unique, grand, sick way.  It strikes me that he is trying to see how many ignorant, dysfunctional and sometimes downright stupid people he can stuff into one White House.  So far he has achieved a far higher number than I ever imagined.

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Word of the Day – Outré

  • Adjective:  Outré
    1.   violating convention or propriety : bizarre
  • Synonyms:
    1. bizarro
    2. crazy
    3. eccentric
    4. far-out
    5. funky
    6. off-kilter
    7. outlandish
    8. peculiar
    9. quirk
    10. weird
  • Usage:
    1. “Guest host Cynthia Nixon presents stories by two masters of the form who share an outré sensibility. Humor, humanity, and fantasy all combine in four tales of things gone wrong.”
  • Encountered:
    1. Written introduction to this week’s episode of  the Selected Shorts podcast –Embracing Disaster: Joyce Carol Oates and Etgar Keret

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

Just as an aside, if you love short stories you need to check out the Selected Shorts podcast.  I have listened to some truly remarkable stories over my years of listening to this show.  Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Their description of their show: “Its story time for adults with PRI’s award-winning series of short fiction read by the stars of stage and screen. Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in NYC and on tour. A co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.”

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NYT Daily’s podcast on Coronavirus

The Daily is a 20 to 30 minute podcast from the New York Times on current topics. Today’s episode is on coronavirus, and it is well worth your time. The primary contributor to this episode is Donald G. McNeil Jr. who is a science and health reporter for The New York Times. His explanation of the possible pandemic is excellent.

What scares me is the leadership of this country.  I do not believe they are up to dealing with a pandemic, unless they do the smart thing and get out of the way of the experts. That would be out of character for the Trump administration.

We have a president who truly does not understand basic science, basic economics or basically very much.  We have many senators and representatives that if they have a basic knowledge of science are willing to act ignorant for the sake of campaign contributions. Trump has put Vice President Pence in “charge” of the government’s response.  I would bet a very large sum of money that Mike Pence believes either 1) you can pray away the possible pandemic or 2) a pandemic would be God’s vengeance on a wicked world and well deserved and the righteous have nothing to worry about.

‘Nuff said a link to the story is below:

The Coronavirus Goes Global

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My Chinese Nightmare

Ten or 15 years ago I was toying around with the idea of becoming ESL (English as a Second Language) certified so I could teach the language in a foreign country.  Perhaps a better word would be fantasizing. I never really pursued the fantasy for a few reasons.  Number one, in a class room situation I am a dreadful teacher.  I do fine one on one or maybe myself and 2 or 3 other souls sitting in a cube as I go over a technology I know really well. I have had people praise me mightily in those circumstances. The few times I was roped in presenting to a large group to teach something, I felt like it was a horrendous experience for me and my audience.  Another reason is that an English teacher in a foreign country does not earn much.  When I was having these fantasies it was pre 2008 and my 401k was looking very fruitful.  I thought maybe I could work for experiential reasons versus pecuniary.

Now the real kicker for me is Continue reading “My Chinese Nightmare”

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“The Day Democracy Died” Sung by The Founding Fathers

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My Superpower

To practice my Spanish I watch YouTube videos.  One of my favorite channels on the platform for this is Easy Spanish. My favorite subset of videos on this channel is street interviews. They come up with a fairly simple question then rope in people that are in parks, walking on the street, etc. to answer the question.  I recently watched one set in Lima, Peru where the lady was asking if they could have one superpower, what it would be and what would they do with it. As could be predicted, most folks were giving answers such as invisibility, to able to fly like Superman and ESP.

This started me wondering about a couple things.  First, how does Superman Continue reading “My Superpower”