On this July 4, when we are ravaged by pandemic and incompetent leadership masquerading as populist totalitarianism, it is good to remind ourselves of the declaration that was made in a different age – on July 4, 1776. Then, the Second Continental Congress adopted what is now referred to as […]
Life
481 posts
We are taking our home garden a bit more seriously this year. The pandemic, and poor health practices by shoppers at the local grocery store, have made it more important to offset time spent in the aisles by planting at home. If C-day was the day Texas’ leadership abandoned its […]
Since things have been getting grim in Texas, mirrored in the COVID-19 rise in my own county (Collin), I thought it would be good to learn about one of the things that can help mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) without a vaccine. That thing is testing. Testing for […]
It is 50 days since Texas essentially ceded the battlefield (the human population) to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. By racing to open back up the economy, without first putting in place reliable metrics, benchmarks, and health investigation foundations, Texas abandoned its people mostly unarmed to an enemy. Thankfully, those of us […]
This is the second day in a row that Collin County, TX, has not reported or updated its COVID-19 case or death count (or any other statistics). It is – likely not coincidentally – two days since the State took over the handling of cases from the County. The question […]
For want of a photo-op for the President, the U.S. Attorney General ordered the forceful clearing of Lafayette Square last night ahead of curfew. This was all apparently so the President could awkwardly clutch a Bible and stand in front of a church. [1] Setting aside all the obvious things […]
It has been 26 days since “C-day,” the day when the Texas governor began ordering the reopening of public places and businesses. It began on May 1 with the reopening of retail workplaces at 25% capacity (but not bars, salons, etc. – office workplaces). Seven days later, salons and similar […]
It is one day since the Texas Governor allowed businesses to reopen at 25% capacity. It is one day since the national stay-at-home recommendation was ended. Families gather in athletic fields, in tight groups. People don’t move off the sidewalk when I pass. I have to swing way out into […]
Friday (tomorrow) is the day that Texas’s Governor allows all businesses to reopen, but only if they cap their in-house customers at 25% of capacity for their facility. So where is my county, Collin County, right now? Anticipating this “momentous” day of continuing to re-open businesses in Texas, Collin County […]
(updated 4/26/2020 with demographic and testing data) Maybe it’s because Texas, as a state, sent signals that it was “okay” to behave like we used to. Maybe it’s because the President lied to the nation over, and over, and over again about the reality of COVID-19. Maybe it’s because people […]
As I wrote several days ago, Zoom has become highly unstable on my desktop computer. I’ve tried everything, including switching from the KDE desktop environment to the XFWM one; switching off compositing; using all different versions of the NVIDIA drivers; swapping other NVIDIA cards into the system; different kinds of […]
Awoke a few days ago to find a line of cat toys stretching from the master bedroom into the foyer of the house. The cats have started communicating by toy. This means something. 🙂