The Crowhill Journal

I started on a new book last night. It was recommended by a friend whose taste I have learned to trust.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin.

I can’t say yet whether I like it, but it did almost immediately remind me of some old noodlings I’ve had about fantasy.

Books that go too far — other worlds, other creatures, other customs, etc. — into the unfamiliar turn me off.

The Lord of the Rings has hobbits and elves and dwarves and wizards, all set in a different world at a different time, but it still manages to be very familiar and homey. Which I like.

When a book is too weird, it loses me.

Sorry to be slow with my post. Happy Easter to all my western calendar friends. I hope you find a way to have a joyful day despite the bad circumstances.

The Crowhill family had a group zoom meeting this morning. 🙂

In the meanwhile, it’s not Easter (for me) without some 70s Christian music.

Pigweed and Crowhill record another “at a distance” podcast on Skype, maintaining social distance during the coronavirus pandemic. They each review a different beer: Pigweed drinks and review Ex Patriot IPA from Three Weavers, and Crowhill drinks and review Blackbeard’s Breakfast from Heavy Seas.

This episode was inspired by a speech Ben Shapiro gave at Liberty University.

The founding fathers said that our form of government only works for a virtuous people. Why would that be true? What is it about the American style of government that requires personal virtue? And what virtues are meant?

The boys ponder what “self governance” means, and how it fits uniquely into the American system.

The inherent warning is obvious. If people won’t govern themselves, who will govern them?

I posted this to LinkedIn. Any ideas?

A lot of businesses need to furlough employees during the current madness, and, fortunately, unemployment compensation is very generous right now. But before an employee can get unemployment compensation, he has to burn up (or get paid for) his accrued vacation time. That doesn’t seem right. Is half the workforce going to come back from this mess with no vacation? (Everybody is going to need one!!) Surely some industry with frequent employee furloughs has figured out a better way to handle this.

How about this?

What if, rather than accruing vacation time at the company, the company paid vacation into an employee’s vacation fund. Then, when he wanted to take a vacation, he’d be on LWOP as far as the employer is concerned, but he’d pay himself from that fund.

A socialist friend asked how I rank the U.S. and Trump for our response to coronavirus. I gave the country a B for response, but a D for planning.

Vlad want on to ask what I thought specifically of Trump. Here’s my reply.

I’m not sure enough of the timeline to give an honest assessment. Early on, the WHO was assuring everyone there was no risk of human to human transmission, and they criticized Trump for stopping flights from China.

I know Trump started off very dismissive of the virus and then changed his mind, but it’s hard to say what he should have known when.

Same for others. Pelosi was telling people to come out for various events, New Orleans still had Mardi Gras, and New York may have been a little slow to close. But a lot of that is 20-20 hindsight. It’s very hard for us to say now what they should have known or done back then.

To me, the bigger issue is how unprepared we are. We should have stockpiles of protective gear, sanitizers, hospital beds, ventilators, etc.

In Maryland, they’ve been trying to close hospitals for years — to move care into smaller facilities. Now they’re crying because they don’t have enough hospital space.

I’m generally opposed to centralization, but this is one area where some central planning is necessary.