Isolation Report, Week #14

[You could also read the most recent report, or even start at the beginning.]


So, these past couple of weeks have been a bit surreal.  People are trying to open the country back up, but nothing about the virus situation seems to have changed: still insufficient tests to see if you have it, still unreliable tests to see if you already got it and recovered, seemingly no closer to a cure or a vaccine.  I did see one report that the number of reported cases is starting to climb again—to which I say, “no shit”—but no one is sounding any alarms yet.  Which I find disturbing.

But perhaps that’s understandable, since the pandemic as a news story has been eclipsed by the tenacity of the Black Lives Matter protests, at least in the US.  Although I understand that some protests are taking place in other countries too, so perhaps more than just here.  This is another issue that I hope for balance on: I am so happy to see that the protests are not just going to go away, as they have in the past, but I’m also very concerned that that crazy person in charge of our country is going to actually do something crazy as opposed to just talking crazy.  Following the news has become completely surreal: if it weren’t my country, I could almost find it ridiculous.  Is this what people in other countries were feeling right before their democracies failed?

And we’re still supposed to be having an election.  The primary voting is still fucked, and some election officials are saying “we’ve got time” to fix it ... but there isn’t.  In large counties, they have to pre-plan the elections months out—sometimes up to a year—and it’s very hard to change directions less than five months out.  And, even if some places are willing to try to do that hard work, other places just aren’t.  Hell, the president openly admitted that making voting easier makes it harder for Republicans to win.  (Well, I say “admitted” ... I guess “bragged” is more appropriate, as he was celebrating defeating legislation to make voting easier.)  Will our elections be fair?  Will they even happen at all?  The president is asking people to apologize for polls that don’t show him winning, and he already seemed perfectly fine with tear gassing citizens.  Once upon a time the concept that a sitting president might attempt to delay or even cancel our election would have been utterly ludicrous.  Now it’s only mildly silly, and becoming increasingly feasible every day.

So, I don’t really know.  This is supposed to be a virus isolation report for me and my family, but, for us, little has changed.  The “reopening” of things has certainly not been heartening, and we’re in hurry to rush out and mingle with the folks who don’t seem to give enough of a shit about their fellow humans to cover their faces.  We’re eating out slightly less, trying to get back to homeschooling the kids regularly, trying to reduce stress wherever possible.  Which is tough these days.


I’ll toss you a few more links for things I think people should watch, even when they’re difficult:

• Anthony Mackie makes an emotional appeal in an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show.
• The Daily Show once again exposes hypocrisy on Fox “news”; in this case, they interleave clips of Fox anchors and commentators ranting about racial justice protestors with clips of pandemic lockdown protestors.  (Of course, the Fox folks had nothing bad to say about those people being in the streets.)
• Dave Chappelle is full of (understandable) rage, and never afraid to be offensive, but I still think this show, which he believes to be the first in-person concert in North America since the pandemic started, is worth watching.
• Wyrmwood is a company that makes some things I like, and they released this video where they solicit opinions from all their employees about the ongoing protests.

I particularly want to highlight the last one.  You don’t know who Wyrmwood is, and, for purposes of watching the video, you don’t really need to know.  It might be useful to know that they’re craftspeople—they’re makers.  But even that is purely optional in the end.  The point is, this company didn’t just want to make a blanket statement, which many would (rightly) perceive as just words, and perhaps suspect that the statement is more for show than anything else.  Instead, they wanted to ask their employees what they thought.  Their employees don’t agree on what the right response is, and they put that in the video.  Their employees have different opinions, and different levels of engagement, and they put that in the video.  There are black employees and white, women and men, gay and straight.  Each one has a different take, and it’s all in the video.  Probably the most compelling opinion came from a white employee, who said this:

So, I’m a combat vet.  ... If a solider kills an innocent civilian in another country, you’re going to Leavenworth.  If a cop kills a person here, who is innocent, did not pose a threat, they at worst get fired.  That’s a huge issue.  There’s a lot of good police officers, just like there’s a lot of good soldiers.  How you deal with those bad people defines you as an organization.  And an organization whose slogan is “to protect and to serve,” if you’re putting your life before the people you’re supposed to be protecting and serving, that is an inherent problem.  The consequences for actions, those are what need to change.  You change those, you change the equation.

Just in case you decided not to watch the whole thing.  But you really should.


Finally, on a lighter note, I’ll leave you with another call to check out “Narrative Telephone.”  My peeps over at Critical Role have kept it up, and I swear it’s the only decent thing about this whole pandemic bullshit.  Not only the fun of watching the story degrade hopelessly over time, but the joy of watching their faces when they watch the same thing you just watched: they give each other shit, they shake their heads in despair at their own foibles, they analyze what went wrong and where.  It makes the whole thing take more than twice as long, but it’s so worth it.  Remember: you don’t have to enjoy D&D or even know anyhthing about it; just enjoy the stories.

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5

Because there should be a little joy in the world.  The pain is necessary, but sometimes you need to take a break.