Who are the essential workers? Congress or Walmart, guest blogger David Meyers

"This strikes me as funny-sad.

In this time of national crisis, who are the essential workers? The House of Representatives or Walmart employees? Since the reps are staying home, it must be the Walmart workers. But are they staying home because they feel it's not worth risking their health or they just don't have anything of value to contribute?

On the flipside, do they consider Walmart workers expendable whereas they are not?

Every time I have gone into a grocery store, I have thanked each worker I have encountered for being there for us. I do the same when I cross paths with anyone who is still out there working--the mail carrier, the UPS driver, the police officer. (That's about all I have encountered, but they are many others out there that deserve thanks, particularly health care workers.)

After this is all behind us, the reps will probably want to vote themselves a raise for their extraordinary efforts on behalf of the country--i.e. sheltering in place and printing money.

In the meantime, most of the workers I have spoken with have been extraordinarily helpful and courteous. And they are all just hoping they don't come down with Covid."

David is a retired state employee and local author specializing in history and music.

What or who are you going to believe?

These days, I never believe anything until it's been rerun in a safe media source a few times. Masks don't help; masks do help; masks are mandatory; or maybe not, just kidding. Not enough ventilators; President's fault; ventilators found; ventilators turned out by millions; not enough people need ventilators; president's fault. The virus can live 3 days on surface; wrong, lives 15 days; wrong again, I'll get back to you on that. Pets can't get covid19; pets can get covid19. We need temporary hospitals and hospital ships; tent hospitals standing empty; President's fault--he should have known better.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/scientists-conclude-people-cannot-get-coronavirus-twice/

Liberals have more trust and faith in government edicts than conservatives do—Ohio study

It appears Covid19 has always been political in Ohio according to a recent study.

"For example, results showed that a higher percentage of conservatives than liberals thought they were at low or very low risk of catching the virus during both surveys. But the gap closed quite a bit between the first and second survey as more liberals no longer saw themselves at high risk.

There were also differences in how liberals and conservatives perceived the reactions of their fellow Americans to the pandemic.

Of the people in the April survey who said that most Americans were “not taking risks seriously enough,” 44 percent described themselves as liberal and 21 percent described themselves as conservative. In contrast, of those who said that most Americans were “overreacting to the actual risks of contracting the virus,” 16 percent described themselves as liberal and 38 percent as conservative."

https://news.osu.edu/survey-shows-how-ohioans-views-on-covid-19-have-evolved/

Cutting back after the shut down

After the lock up/ shut down/ shut up is over, half the adults will be going on a diet (my estimate). Here's some tips:

My observation is that diet drinks and special diet foods make people fat. They don't taste right and create a craving for more food. Use less, or just add your own water or milk, which is often the first ingredient.

EPA reports if you remove 100 lbs of junk from the trunk or back seat, your car's fuel efficiency will improve by 2%. Same with your body. Remove 10% of your body weight from your trunk or back seat and it will improve your own energy efficiency. I think I'll try that 10% and I still might weigh more than Bob .

Women who weigh themselves every day are on average 7-8 lbs lighter than those who don't.

Move! Obese people tend to sit for 150 more minutes a day than their lean counterparts.

Losing the sloppy jeans and t-shirt and getting a good haircut will make you look 10lbs thinner, even if you don't lose a pound.

Eat less, move more. ELMM. Shop the outside aisles at the grocery store.

And remember: A BMI of below 25 can't be normal if so few people are there.

I’d planned to start today, but had 2 slices of peanut butter toast for breakfast.  Maybe tomorrow. . .

How to prepare for a pandemic

I found an interesting document on how to prepare for a pandemic among my son's hospice material: "Household Preparedness A to Z." Each letter of the alphabet covers one or two critical details. B was household chlorine bleach; J was sports juice or fluids containing electrolytes; X was extra batteries for flashlight and radio, etc.

"Experts believe a worldwide outbreak, or pandemic, of influenza will happen someday. The exact timing is not known, but it is certain our everyday lives will drastically change during a pandemic. These changes may include temporary closing of schools or cancellation of events, disruption of normal services such as utilities and some shortages. There are things you can do now to prepare. Take time to understand the needs of your household; and take action to help lessen the impact of an influenza pandemic on you and your family."

Since he received it in mid-February, it was out there and available before the current pandemic. It was posted at the Ohio Department of Health, www.ohiopandemicflu.gov. I checked it and it no longer exists and there's no date on the document. It appeared to have a lot of additional information for schools, businesses, communities, local governments, with planning newsletters, fact sheets and brochure.  I later found that document at http://www.pike-health.org/Elements/PdfDocuments/Items/HouseholdAZ.pdf

I'm guessing all states had this document on how to prepare for a pandemic. So why was it the president's responsibility and not ours? Or the hospitals? Or the schools? And why were people so excited that Bill Gates had given a Ted Talk and "warned" us if it was right in our Department of Health web page?

Kidneys and Covid19

The divide on whether to open is coming down to politics not medicine--specifically, who hates Donald Trump. But maybe it should come to whether you care about your kidneys. Take a look at the comorbidities of those who died of or with (which seems to be a lot of it) this novel SARS virus--diabetes, hypertension and obesity. Specifically, diabetes. About a third of those with diabetes (which is often related to both hypertension and obesity) will develop chronic kidney disease. The kidneys can't filter your blood and you may also have nerve damage. It's a disease that affects the same people vulnerable to this virus--over 60, high blood pressure and member of a minority group. A chronic condition means usually it's controllable by changes in life style and medication, and nagging from the doctor.

The very people who aren't seeing their doctors or are afraid to call, are the ones you're putting in danger by hanging on to your hatred of Donald Trump so you can blame him for the virus and the shut down. End the shut down; save your kidneys.

And please, Trump haters, stop acting so morally superior by accusing conservatives of wanting people to die by going back to life and work. You are the problem. . .

Why retirees have problems cleaning out the files

Have you ever tried to clean out your storage or files and found out it takes days to go through one drawer or file cabinet or closet? For me, the big mistake is sitting down to read something I wrote 25-30 years ago. I don't know what happens in the offices of retired pastors who preach every Sunday and lead Bible studies or school teachers who saved reams of projects and lesson plans, but it's a nightmare for librarians like me who have attend hundreds of meetings and who had publishing requirements for promotion and tenure and saved all their notes.

For instance, my notes (never published because they were for me) for "The Ohio White House Conferences on Library and Information Services--Literacy," September 27 (1990?) held at the Worthington Holiday Inn. I'm not sure why I attended--it seemed to be for public librarians, and not academic. We live in different worlds and focus on totally different problems and clientele. Ohio doesn't have a "White House" so the title means each state or region was having meetings to funnel information back to the President--George H.W. Bush--information on which any administration rarely acts, but the money would have come from the federal government. My writing style always includes off topic ideas that occur to me, so before I wrote out my notes, I commented on the poor representation of the media at this conference and I blamed my profession, not the media.

"Librarians have been notorious for not being able to market their product. Distilleries put their information on billboards in the inner city and at interstate exchanges. Librarians put notices on bookmarks which can only be picked up in libraries. Cigarette companies give away cigarettes to induce a life time addiction. Librarians give away time and effort registering voters and showing movies in hopes that the user might check out a book. Librarians sponsor National Library Week when for the cost they could probably create one of those phony commercial talk shows for cable television that are on every channel from midnight on. Targeting neighborhoods with direct mail campaigns has sold millions of dollars worth of goods, but when was the last time you received a doorhanger from the library except at levy time? Have you ever received a phone call from a telemarketer interrupting your dinner to ask if your library card in current?

There are millions of literate people who never set foot in a library. They either don't need them, don't like them, or have had bad experiences in them. They join book clubs, subscribe to magazines and newspapers; they visit book stores and book sales, but not libraries. There are also millions of literate people who are non-readers. . .

The largest, single common denominator identifying all librarians is that we are members of that particular cultural group--the readers. We are so chauvinistic we cannot imagine anyone could be happy who doesn't share this common trait. Librarians have created every imaginable network, coalition, association, and service organization to lure people into their libraries, but they haven't been able to keep libraries in the schools, not even with all the dues we pay. We can't even get a librarian appointed as the "Librarian of Congress." [note: that did finally happen under Obama--a 3-fer, Carla Hayden, black, female, librarian]."

And I went on to mention the dropping numbers (30 years ago) for literacy among children, even in families where moms read to them. Then I wrote about the activities at my public library that week for children: 4 programs involving movies, and 3 for Halloween crafts.

I went on and on for pages--have no idea what happened at the conference. This was 8 typed pages, and no information on what resulted from the meeting. There is a printed report listed on Amazon as out of stock, Jan. 1, 1990, and a copy in the OSU library.

Maybe some attitudes have changed in libraries the last 30 years. I'm no longer an insider. If there were two institutions that should have been considered essential during this shut down it was churches and libraries. Both are filled with evangelists for their passion, and both were silenced, submissive and shuttered.

Spiritual resources for the pandemic

In the Ohio State Health Beat newsletter (on-line) today there is a section for well-being resources during the lock down/culture shock for the pandemic.  https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/features/covid-resources/staff/well-being  There are a number of links featuring ideas or publications for mental health, well being, coping and spiritual helps for employees. So I clicked on "Spiritual Resources" (listed after Mindfulness which actually IS a practice well within the eastern religions) and after Chaplin services, telephone support, audio spiritual pause, a prayer request link and poems, I came to "Faith specific prayers." Here's how they are listed. 1) Islam, 2) Buddhism, 3) Judaism, 4) Christianity, 5) Hinduism. Isn't that odd? Christians are the largest faith group in the world, and approximately 75% of Americans claim some connection to Christianity even if they are just Chreasters and only attend baptisms.

So I continue down the list to a link for "Sacred Texts" which is four links below poetry-- 1) Buddhist Scriptures (13 are listed), 2) Holy Bible, one verse from the NIV is listed, with a link to Bible Gateway keyword feature, 3) Holy Quran, individual links to 114 chapters that link to Meccan references 4) The Tenach (Jewish), with detailed links to the Torah, the Prophets, etc. Whoever put this together threw a dart at the internet religious resources and came up with a politically correct list, all turn key, assuring that no OSU employee would find anything Christian as a resource in this difficult time.

Let's hope they all are attending Bible studies on Zoom or something. Maybe they won't notice our government is shredding the First Amendment in a dangerous precedent while the Christian churches are silent because they can still shop at Walmart.

What is even more anti-Christian is a whole link https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/features/covid-resources/staff/well-being/daily-breathing-practice  devoted to "5 minutes of Mindfulness" on CarmenZoom, with links for each day by video. EACH DAY. Imagine (it's impossible, but try) if there were all those digital resources and planning from a state agency devoted to video links of a pastor or rabbi reading from the Psalms, or offering instruction for the devotional practice, The Rosary.

"Mindfulness" is a religious practice of Hinduism/Buddhism (you can find instructions at both Buddhist and Hindu sites), using an English term that sounds like it isn't religious since the brain doesn't need to be engaged. Well, my brain is engaged, and I'm calling foul on the state for advocating for one religious group over another and pretending it's something else. And shame on Christians for having your babes so poorly catechized that they go off to college and get "evangelized" for eastern religions at almost every turn.

Gabbe Health and Wellness which provides these breathing techniques daily is part of the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State. Today's topic is “Hope as a state of being,” and if you click on it the pleasant woman will provide instructions for the religious techniques.

It’s not about your health when . . .

Kevin Sorbo: "It’s not about your health when the State says it’s too dangerous for you to walk in the park with your child, then puts dangerous criminals back on the street – or, when it tells you it’s safe to go in-person to a grocery store, but not to a voting station. . . when the State shuts down millions of private businesses but doesn’t lay off a single government employee, it's not about your health."

The worm has turned: Covid19 misinformation

Candace Owens: "I broke this story 2 months ago, and was called a "conspiracy theorist". It feels so good to be vindicated. Last night, Tucker Carlson honorably admitted that he fell for the initial hype, and now realizes that the virus is not as deadly as the experts predicted. When I (Candace Owens) started reporting on #coronavirus it was difficult because every single person was convinced it was really as deadly as the journalists were saying, and that I was spreading misinformation. Now things have shifted and virtually everyone is admitting they were wrong. If nothing else, this pandemic should teach us the following:

1) Just because a lie is said a million times, doesn't make it true.

2) Our subconscious works at a faster pace than our conscious. Remember to trust your gut.

3) The speed at which Americans were willing to sacrifice their liberties for a false sense of security should disgust and alarm everyone.

4) The mainstream media is poisonous.

5) Stand up for what you believe in. It's better than being popular."

https://www.dailywire.com/news/yes-hospitals-get-paid-more-for-coronavirus-coded-patients-even-if-they-havent-been-tested?

Comparing the polio epidemics and Covid19

I’ve been anti-shutdown for weeks, but I only saw this video today.  https://youtu.be/lGC5sGdz4kg  So it has had no influence on me.  I’ve watched how the people of Ohio have been led into complete submission while our small businesses have been destroyed. Big box and chains are open.  I watched our sensible, conservative Republican, Trump-supporting, Governor DeWine and his sidekick Dr. Amy, appear every day on TV always quietly oozing more fear and regulations.

If you’re old enough to remember the polio epidemic, the video makes a lot of sense.  I recall my cousin Jimmy Corbett who died in 1949 of polio, and the Kable children I think 4 of the 5 had it, but all survived. We had a big gathering of Corbetts at the John Corbett home (parents of Jimmy) because of visiting relatives from California.  We had a wonderful time and within days Jimmy was dead from polio and about a week later my sister Carol had it. We all were quarantined (in those days they quarantined the people most at risk to contract the disease not the entire country), but not the adults.  My father moved out of our home in Forreston and moved in with his parents in Mt. Morris so he could earn a living (novel idea for 2020)—all had been at that family dinner.  So why weren’t they afraid for the adults?  Immunity.  Most adults born in the late 19^th or early 20^th century had some immunity to polio, a disease that had been around for centuries. Whether it was improved sanitation (indoor plumbing) or something else, I don’t know, but children of the 1930s and 1940s were being struck down.  Some young adults did have it—like FDR, and I wonder if it was his somewhat pampered life (flush toilets) that created the vulnerability whereas my Dad used an outhouse and met his first flush toilet at 14 when he started high school in Polo, IL.

Our son Phil died a week ago and we’d been caring for him (no wife or children for a safety net) first in his home, then in ours as we began to wear out. Under normal circumstances, my 82 year old husband would have seen his own doctor as soon as he began to have breathing problems, but it was postponed due to our situation and because of the shut down/telemedicine.  He needed testing and that isn’t done on the phone. Eventually the squad took him to the ER when he realized he was exhausted walking to the neighbor’s to get ice cream we’d stored in her freezer. He was admitted, tested, and found to have some serious cardiac issues.  The hospital, the largest in Columbus, was virtually empty. Everything—heart, lung, knee, hip, brain—was postponed because of the pandemic scare.  And how many thousands and thousands either didn’t go to their doctor or weren’t diagnosed because of the focus and policies about Covid19? Even today, the death toll nationwide is higher than normal, and the bump isn’t due to Covid.  It’s probably due to people not going to the doctor when they should have—technically, we’d created a nation of uninsured.

I think our president has been misled and so have many of the governors. Whenever I hear the word “data” I mentally flag it.  Dr. Birx of the president’s task force often said, “the data show. . .” Data is not information, information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom.”
With more sifting and examination the data are actually showing that over 90% of those who died had one of three, or all three—obesity, hypertension, or diabetes.  So meanwhile, reporters who think will probably not be sent to investigate and all the sheeple get are stupid memes about injecting Lysol.

If you’re too young to remember polio, think about how HIV/AIDS was misreported and politicized (still is) as a disease that all of us would get in the 1980s.  And that’s nonsense in service of an agenda.  It’s still isolated for the most part to gay and bisexual men and drug users, and it’s behavior, not homophobia that spreads it.

Stop the insanity

Old people like me are at risk for Covid19. But no more so than the flu, falls and pneumonia. The shut down/lock up is hurting us more. There are shelves of research showing that being social is key to being healthy in old age; that moving even 45 minutes a day can extend your life, maybe more than 3 hours at the gym. Mall walking with a friend or shopping or a stroll in the park help us more than it helps young whipper snapper reporters opining about the evils of people who want the lock down to end. We may not remember the sermon, but we need our Sunday School class or choir participation or working with the ladies in the kitchen to connect. And yes, Alzheimer's doubles every 5 years after 65, but it's those tiny little strokes, the ones you can't detect on the phone, that really slow down our brains over time.

Governor, stop the insanity. You're killing us.

Down on the farm, 1969

  

Our children loved our vacations at my mother's farm located between Franklin Grove and Ashton, IL. My niece Cindy sent this treasure. I'm thinking this is June, 1969 and Cindy's family was living there. We'd come down ( we always said "down" when traveling from Mt. Morris to Franklin) to check out the remodeling progress. Eventually my mother created a wonderful retreat type facility for church groups. So Phil was about 7 months old in this photo. My nieces and our son Stan (deceased) were all within weeks of each other in age. That's Cindy on the far left. Squished and wiggling in her cousin's arms is our Phoebe. The guy with red hair is Bob.

Restrictions

When things finally open . . .

Opening season will be open season on Trump (who has been in the cross hairs of the media since 2015), and we know WaPo, NYT, LAT, CNN and MSNBC will be spewing misinformation, fake news and ridicule for what he didn't do, might have done, did 20 years ago, is doing and won't do.
"A targeted, data-driven approach that recognizes the differing conditions of the states, rather than placing them all on the Procrustean bed of a single policy, is the right prescription for this crisis."  City Journal https://www.city-journal.org/white-house-plan-to-open-economy?

A procrustean bed: A situation or place that someone is forced into, often violently. In Greek mythology, the giant Procrustes would capture people and then stretch or cut off their limbs to make them fit into his bed.

These government policies have indeed cut off our economic and cultural arms and legs to make us fit into their one size fits all shut down.

Seeing things unseen

When Phil was hospitalized twice in 6 months, we met and talked to many foreign doctors, nurses, paraprofessionals, social workers, techs and staff. We also noticed that medical practitioners from other cultures, particularly African and Indian, have a whole other way of looking at, touching and treating people. It's not about being kind, although they were; it was intuition. It's like they have a second sense endowed by their cultures about the body that book learning and college degrees don't offer. And they were not like each other, either. Filipinas were not the same as Nigerians. I wonder how this translates to current demand using telephone, Zoom and Skype.

Covid19 stats for Ohio

April 26 COVID-19 snapshot:
Data provided by ODH as of 2 p.m. April 26
Confirmed cases in Ohio: 15,360 
Number hospitalized in Ohio: 3,178 
Number of confirmed deaths in Ohio: 687 
Number of cases in Franklin County: 1,942
And about 28,000 deaths a year from cardiovascular problems.

David Meyers comments:

There is a lot of half-baked science being touted right now. I say half-baked because it’s being put out for public consumption before it is ready. Even in the absence of a major health crisis, it is not uncommon to make claims that turn out to be wrong. The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Johannes Fibiger in 1926 for the discovering that a roundworm caused cancer in rats. Only it didn’t. It was an honest mistake.

Good science usually takes time. It should be devoid of politics and independent of outside influences, i.e. money and fame. But good science takes money. That’s the dilemma researchers find themselves. Right now, there are real scientists—someone said about ninety teams—working hard to diagnose and solve a problem in a few months that would normally take years. They are no doubt feeling pressure to skip steps. The test groups are often small and the controls are possibly lacking. Some scientists are bypassing peer review because that takes time. Others seems to be motivated by a need to draw attention to themselves.

In the meantime, our economy is taking a shellacking. Only time will tell if it was worth it, although many people have already made up their mines.

I decided to take a look at the CDC website to see if I could learn anything more from it that we were being told. The first thing that struck me is that the CDC is lumping Covid-19 together with influenza and pneumonia.** Apparently, anybody who dies of influenza or pneumonia is per se a Covid casualty, now. The death rate for this group is (according to the most recent data) 18.6 people per 100,000 and declining. It had been over 21 just a couple of weeks earlier. I don’t know what it is, now. But on a yearly basis I would expect it to decline.

I wanted to put this in perspective. Unfortunately, the most recent data for the leading causes of death in the United States is as of 2018. They are:

655,381 heart disease [163.6 per 100,000]
599,274 cancer [149.1 per 100,000]
167,127 accidents/unintentional injuries [48.0 per 100,000]
159,486 chronic lower respiratory diseases [39.7 per 100,000]
147,810 cerebrovascular [37.1 per 100,000]
122,019 Alzheimer disease [30.5 per 100,000]
84,946 diabetes [21.4 per 100,000]
** 59,120 influenza and pneumonia [14.9 per 100,000]
51,386 kidney disease [12.9 per 100,000]
48,344 suicide [14.2 per 100,000]

As you can see, the typical rate for influenza and pneumonia is 12.9 per 100,000. It will be interesting to see what it will be at the end of 2020, but we probably won’t know that until 2022.

We’ve had to buy an extra recycle bin for our trash

What's with covering plastic bottles with plastic envelop labels with instructions to remove the label before recycling? I've only noticed it recently because before I don't buy a lot of small, specialty items like sports drinks and nutritional supplements like Ensure or high calorie treats from Tim Horton’s. But I guess that marketing waste has moved to some things I do buy. I've most recently experienced it with Half n Half and pints if milk (Kroger brand). With all the carry out food and back-to-plastic bags for shopping, we will have undone a decade's worth of nagging and hypervigilant recycling habits in just a month of stay home/stay shuttered/stay stupid that will not change the death statistics.

Sunday musings on the Trump critics

I've noticed some strange behavior among the Trump haters.

In addition to calling me names like stupid Fox News watcher or Trump cult member, they ridicule Trump's appearance, his 3 marriages, his children, his speech and his Christian faith.

Odd. With a 50% divorce rate among Americans, how many divorces are OK with these folks? Did his critics just shack up or sleep around and not bother with legalities? Is that wagging finger pointing back at the speaker with a tinge of guilt?

And his appearance? 69% of women are either overweight or obese and 75% of men. How slim are his critics? Could the critics keep up his schedule?

His children? Have you checked out the Kennedy genealogy and Roosevelt kids lately? Didn't Cuomo and Schwarzenegger both marry into the Kennedy clan and then dump their wives, one for a cook the other for a maid?

The way Trump talks? It was OK with Trump critics that both H. Clinton and B. Obama would change their speech patterns with their clothing to try to ingratiate themselves with certain ethnic groups or income levels. But Trump never changes. He tweets, he talks, and he jokes, but it always drives the left crazy that he doesn't change to suit them. They don't want him to talk like a deal making businessman--they want him to sound like a washed up, has-been politician who has been failing for 40 years in government.

Christian faith? With 35,000 different denominations, independents, and Bible churches among Christians who can't even agree on how to baptize or when Jesus is coming back, just which group is OK with his critics? The one they belong to? The one they don't honor with their presence or tithe?

It's puzzling.

Covid19 April 24 in Ohio

So far, 649 have died of Covid19 in Ohio, and based on previous years, about 28,000 will die of heart disease in Ohio. Probably more than previous years because hospitals and clinics are not seeing cardiac problems in a timely fashion and are using the "wait and get sicker" method of socialist countries. We're experiencing that in our household.