Category: Uncategorized

Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say here. I think some form of slow down / quarantine / stay at home / social distancing rule was right and necessary (even though probably unconstitutional). The medical experts say this is a very contagious and deadly virus, and without a pause of some kind, the death toll could have been very bad.

Having said that, the after-action review is going to be interesting. (If it’s honest.)

There are a lot of strange components to this story.

People who are dying from other causes, who are also infected with coronavirus, are being counted as having died from coronavirus. Is that right?

I’ve also heard that suicides are way up. Losing your job can push some people over the edge, and lots of people have lost their jobs. So it’s not just “the economy vs. saving lives,” as some people have said. It’s one kind of harm vs. another kind of harm.

And then there are the models. The models were used to scare us into hibernation, and now that they’ve turned out to be very wrong, they’re spinning it as “that’s how bad it would have been if we hadn’t taken measures.”

Yeah. I don’t believe it. I think the models took mitigation measures into account.

So will someone review the models to see what went wrong?

Once this whole thing clears up, we’re going to need a multi-disciplinary, non-partisan panel of experts to look over it all and figure out what really happened.

And re: my comment above about the various government orders being unconstitutional, I think it’s possible to say that some of them were both necessary and unconstitutional. Which means we need to clarify how to handle such emergencies in the future.

Somewhat along these lines, this is an interesting read: The Stress Pandemic.

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.