John Prine

Our one and only president has accused healthcare workers of stealing PPE (personal protective equipment), such as masks.

I confess, Mr President. Current precautions (subject to change) at my place of work require me to wear a mask (plain surgical mask, not N95) with all patients, and a face shield over that to protect it so I can use the mask indefinitely unless I see a patient actually in isolation, in which case I am to discard the mask but clean the face shield. For known COVID-19 patients we use a fit-tested N-95 mask or a PAPR (powered air-purifying respirator).

As a result, I used one mask last week, as well as one face shield. I have cleaned the face shield more times than I can count, so I’ll confess I’ve also used some Cavi-Wipes, alcohol wipes, and Purell. Oh, I stored the mask and shield over the weekend and will use them again this week. There are several thousand other employees in the same hospital who are equally guilty. In fact, one of my co-workers replaced the elastic band on his face shield because it wore out, so he will confess to using a foot of Coban.

(Image from 3M)

So in one little ol’ midwestern hospital we used maybe 10,000 pieces of PPE more than in a normal week. Gee, Mr President, do ya think it’s possible that there is a legitimate reason hospitals are using 10 times more PPE than usual? If we used to use it for, say one in 50 patients, and now we use it for every patient, maybe a ten-fold increase means we are actually conserving equipment. [ed. note: these numbers are seat-of-the-pants estimates.]

John Prine has been intubated and ventilated for COVID-19. Having survived two cancers (including a lung), he may be too tough for this virus. Prine demonstrated more genius in his first album than most of us do in a lifetime. I still remember the first time I heard that record, at the apartment of a co-worker after a meeting in 1971. I thought I had a crush on her at the time, but it might have been John Prine instead.

The album opens with “Illegal Smile” – “it seemed like total silence was the only friend I had.”

If that wasn’t good enough, he followed with “Spanish Pipedream”, in whch he told us to “blow up the TV…”

He showed more insight into our neglect of the elderly than a man of 25 had any right to in “Hello in There” – “You know that old trees just go stronger and old rivers grow wilder every day. But old people just grow lonesome waiting for someone to say ‘Hello in there, hello.'”

“Sam Stone” told the story of a man returning from Viet Nam with PTSD and a monkey on his back: “There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes…”

“Paradise” told the story of Prine’s parents’ childhood home, now an open mine – “‘And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County, down by the Green River, where paradise lay.’ ‘Well I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking – Mr Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.'”

I could go through the whole album this way – every one a gem, including “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore”. Instead, I’ll leave you with “Angel from Montgomery”, also recorded by Bonnie Raitt (speaking of crushes), and here as a duet.

As of this writing, Prine’s family says his condition is stable.

A bike club I ride with just deleted a few weeks’ worth of rides from their website. Another club posted their rides but urged people to start at different times and ride in different directions. Our “safer-at-home” order allows outdoor exercise, though not in groups.

It was one of those days. No matter which way I turned, and I rode in a loop, I never seemed to have a tailwind. It was a headwind or headwindier. The spring peepers were not practicing Social Distancing. They seem to get loud right around maple surgaring weather.

There also seemed to be a lot more cars out than I’ve seen in a while. The number of new cases of COVID-19 has leveled off in the past few days around here. That is not say we’ve turned the corner. The number of total cases is not decreasing or even leveling off. The number of new cases added each day has, at least for the past few days, leveled off. That appears to say that staying home is working. Keep it up. Go listen to the rest of the John Prine album.

Oh yeah – I sent in my absentee ballot today. Remember to vote.

Crackpot conspiracy theory

“Crackpot conspiracy theory” is not a redundancy. Granted, we have been exposed to a lot of crackpot conspiracy theories lately, but that does not mean that all conspiracy theories are crackpot.

It is clear that COINTELPRO was a conspiracy to undermine and discredit the left in general and African-American movements in particular. It is no mere theory that the FBI and the Chicago police, at the very least, conspired to murder Fred Hampton in December of 1968.

The recent spate of right-wing conspiracy theories is egregiously crackpot on its face. By definition the ruling class is conservative. Conserving its power and preserving the status quo are what it does. As Mayor Richard Dailey famously told us in 1968: “The police aren’t here to create disorder; the police are here to preserve disorder.” To think there is a Deep State conspiracy to foment radical change is nonsensical. (I also find it humorous that the “Deep State” players seem to be the dedicated public servants who work long-term in government jobs for worse wages than in the private sector. Those opposed to the “Deep State” are the opportunist political appointees who take short-term jobs in order to consolidate their power and return or advance to lucrative private-sector positions.)

So sit back, relax, and enjoy this crackpot conspiracy theory. Since the appearance of COVID-19, among the first drastic actions was to close down a lot of small, locally owned businesses – those with the least accumulated capital and the least ability to weather an economic storm. Business moved from Main Street to the internet even more than it already had. Now, even some internet businesses are shutting down (Sierra Trading Post among them), citing the need for deep cleaning of their warehouses and fear of spreading the disease among their workers. Who is still open for business? Amazon.

Where is one of the largest accumulations of capital in the world? Amazon. Who has been in the forefront of automating warehouse operations? Amazon. What if COVID-19 were a covert plan to consolidate business even further and to move toward full warehouse automation? Amazon can afford the capital expenditure for full automation. It could eliminate jobs under the guise of protecting warehouse workers and saving the economy from collapse. What about delivery? What if we were to fast-track approval of autonomous delivery vehicles? Amazon could bypass the normal shipping chain, with its unionized workforce, and deliver via self-driving vehicles and drones -again to save the economy from collapse. We would be left with a company owned by a multi-billionaire, the largest retailer (and one of the largest companies, period) in the world, employing almost no one after driving out of business countless other companies employing many.

I just made this all up on a bike ride. The trouble with crackpot conspiracy theories is when they sound believable.

Heigh Ho

Ironically, I have been called back to work on the same day that the Governor issued a stay-at-home (“safer at home”) order. I shocked everyone at work by showing up in scrubs. I had to field more questions about that than about the fact that I was out sick for >2 weeks for the first time ever. I have never before worn scrubs to work. After wearing a uniform as a plumber, I wanted to wear my own clothes for this career. That just changed. I will have a “clean” and a “dirty” zip close plastic bag to carry clothes to and from work. I’ll change there every day and have a separate laundry load for work clothes – just like the old days! We all look like space creatures with face shields over masks. To preserve masks (which can’t be cleaned) we cover them with a plastic face shield (which can).

Our pharmacy is now making and packaging hand sanitizer due to the shortage of the commercial product. A local distillery is selling a special 140 proof vodka as a hand sanitizer. More businesses closed today. The good news is that, among essential allowed activities, is outdoor exercise. (Photo by Jason Rice/WMTV)

Words to live by

From Dane County (WI) Executive Joe Parisi: “(A)s long as we’re looking out for one another, we will all have someone looking out for us.”

From Miami Herald writer Leonard Pitts: “the GOP is a hate group – and Trump its Grand Wizard.”

And, of course, this exchange (in case the previous statement needed clarifying):
Peter Alexander, White House correspondent at NBC News: “What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?”
Donald Trump: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.”
He could have appeared as the calm father figure, here to reassure us. He could have said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He could have lied and told us he had the situation well in hand. (There are many video compilations of his various statements over the past two months to make that falsehood obvious.) But no, true to form, he lashed out and attacked the questioner. He attacked the question itself, and he chose not to answer.

McDonald’s spoke out in favor of new proposed federal legislation mandating paid sick leave during the pandemic. Interestingly, the bill applies only to those who employ between 50 and 500 people. Yes, your neighborhood restaurant might be required to provide paid sick leave, but McDonald’s will not. WordPress is acting up tonight and the embedded YouTube video above may or may not work. (It was working yesterday). If it is flashing and making you dizzy (as it is as I do this final edit), try this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oPbpE5EIgc&t=13s

“After food and shelter, there is no greater need or necessity than the ability to protect oneself and one’s loved ones,” the Keystone Shooting Center wrote. Gun stores are being allowed to remain open in several states that have ordered all “non-essential” businesses to close. It seems that being able to guard one’s stash of toilet paper is essential. My source is not the Onion, but the Washington Examiner and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Adopt-a-Highway

It was a slow start for the first few hundred meters, with nothing much but cigarette butts. Business started to pick up and Bud Light made a strong initial showing before being overtaken by Busch Light to hold on to its overall championship. To be fair, both are Anheuser-Busch products, so they retain the title of the most popular brand among litterbugs. Hard seltzer products made a strong showing. Tobacco products showed gains, with snuff tins, empty cigarette packs, and a vaping device in addition to the numerous butts.

Folks made a strong effort to sully a roadside stream, with an unprecedented number of beer cans clearing the guardrails on both sides and reaching the stream banks. The day set records for weight and volume, with a lot of cardboard in the mix. We picked up 25 pounds of trash, filling two large bags to overflowing. Radical social distancing, walking alone on a rural highway with almost no traffic. We saw one family out for a walk and one person shooting hoops in his driveway.

To grandmother, with love

I drink from a cup labeled, “To Grandmother with love”. What’s up with that?

In 1984 I was the new kid in town, relocated from Wisconsin to Northern California. I was the backwoods rube to some and the whiz kid from the promised land to others. To Bonnie, I became “Mom”. (Need I say she was older than I?)

I grew up in Wisconsin and never thought I’d leave. Circumstances in 1983 changed all that. I went to a national conference that fall, resumes in hand, looking for work. I was offered a job as the Maintenance Director of a low-income housing co-op in Santa Clara, California. Seventy nine families jointly owned a sprawling townhouse project, complete with swimming pool. In 1963 someone had convinced HUD (the Department of Housing and Urban Development) that even poor people needed swimming pools in the desert. Among new skills, I learned swimming pool maintenance.

I bought a beat-up 1975 GMC van to move my self and stuff to California. I hadn’t had a car for over 10 years (and even that one I’d only used for a year or so; it mostly sitting parked). Arriving in California, I quickly discovered how attached people were to their cars. Many felt sorry for me. I had planned to move out there and resell the van. It became apparent quickly that it had no resale value and that a car becomes a necessity in a place like that. When the van died, I almost bought a 1962 Jaguar (like that driven by Inspector Morse in the BBC series). Instead I bought a Toyota Corolla.

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1960 Jag/Inspector Morse from Shropshire Star, 1985 Toyota from Mecum Auctions

I was offered a scholarship to attend Co-op Camp Sierra, a training center in the mountains near Shaver Lake. I soon discovered that Wisconsin was seen as the center of the co-op world. We had had a vibrant co-op economy starting in the 1920s, when Finnish immigrants in the northwoods developed their own co-op label products.

Image from Finlandia University

Even the little co-op I had co-founded was known out there. We were seen as the vanguard. As my friend who worked as a management consultant said at the beginning of his seminars, “a consultant is an ordinary person far from home.” I discovered the truth of this in California. Ideas that nobody listened to here were seen as wisdom out there. Crackpot schemes here were paid for there. Folks seem to think that the more they pay for something, the more it is worth. If an employee you’re already paying has an idea, it is of no value. If the same sentiment is echoed by a high-priced consultant, it is now the word of god.

Another consultant friend was charging $250/day for his services. He was subcontracting Bay Area work to me so he could travel less. He decided he wanted to work less, so he raised his rate to $400/day. He had more work than he could handle. If he charged $400/day, he must be good! (Or so folks thought.)

So I got to camp and was soon put to work. From the shy backwoods kid who didn’t know anybody, I suddenly was thrust into the midst of running the camp, and was forced out of my shell. Bonnie, the Camp Manager, made me her Administrative Assistant. That’s fancy talk for what she really called me – “Mom”. My job was to make sure she got everywhere on time, that she had all of her stuff with her (a rolling suitcase on mountain trails isn’t the easiest thing to move around), and that no one stole her cigarette lighter to sell at the camp auction. I failed miserably at that last task one year, when it was I who stole it and ran up the bidding at the auction – as auctioneer and co-conspirator, I planted a few shills.

Bonnie had grown children and one year they gave me the pictured mug at camp to thank me for keeping their mom in line; and that’s how I became a grandmother before I turned 40.

Testifying before the Senate in support of the National Consumer Co-operative Bank Act, Bonnie said, “The co-op is my church.” [From National Consumer Cooperative Bank Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions…]

Bonnie died too young. One of the campers had once asked me to nominate her for a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius grant”) for her work at camp and in the co-op community. That’s how much my “daughter” was valued by those around her.

A Modest Proposal (with apologies to J. Swift)

US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has suggested that we keep COVID-19 in perspective: “We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die on the highways”; COVID-19 “isn’t a death sentence except to maybe no more than 3.4% of our population”.

Since 3.4% of our population is not ten thousand but more than ten million people, perhaps he is responding to what he sees as overpopulation. COVID-19 may be his way of thinning the herd, bringing our population down to a more acceptable level. If that is the case, perhaps we could just eliminate, for example, the Dallas and Seattle metropolitan areas with a couple of well-placed large bombs. This would lower the population and eliminate crumbling infrastructure. He may prefer other cities. Let us not quibble over details. Eliminating the entire state of Wisconsin would only get rid of half as many people and, besides, where would folks from Illinois go for vacations?

Saving lives

In Italy there is a shortage of a particular valve for ventilators. Massimo Temporelli, Cristian Fracassi, Alessandro Ramaioli, et al decided to do something about it. The valves cost $11,000 each and were unavailable. It is literally a matter of life and death (and I don’t mean that figuratively). These engineers 3D printed copies for about $1 a piece (material cost only) in order to save lives. They risk a lawsuit for patent violation, as they openly duplicated a patented device. They had one interest – saving lives quickly. (Information from Daily Kos and confirmed in multiple other sources.) Below is a translation of Fracassi’s Facebook post. I want to let him tell his own story. I do not vouch for the translation accuracy.

“You know in movies when someone is about to fall into the ravine? Usually at that moment the protagonist comes along and throws him a rope, but this rope slides… and time runs. We don’t believe that at that moment there are many questions about whether the rope is in accordance with or that it belongs to others. At that moment you only think about saving those who are falling. Then once you’re safe, with panting and adrenaline dropping, you can reason.
Well, we found ourselves in that situation. There were people in danger of life, and we acted. Period.
Now, with a cold mind, let’s think.
Firstly, don’t call us, as some have, heroes. Sure, people were about to die, but we only did our duty. Refusing would not have been a cowardly act, but murderous. Far from us.
Don’t call us, like some have, geniuses. Genius is such Venturi, who identified the physical principle that we only applied, as any other engineer would have. There is no genius in the piece everyone is talking about, there is only application of a physical principle.
But now let us also silence words that are flying beyond our intentions, and beyond our control: we have no intention of profit on this situation, we are not going to use the designs or product beyond the strict need for us forced to act, we are not going to spread the drawing. But not only: in this time when public opinion is very sensitive, please do not throw yourself at anyone. If we acted quickly it’s only because with 3 d printers you can quickly try a small production which would be impossible on the industrial scale. Finally, let us also say that certain figures we see turning are not true: we do not want to go into detail, because the cost of a piece is not that of the weight of a plastic pile: professional time come into play , costs of materials, energy etc. I mean, the cost is something complex, but let us keep the secret, and don’t know the right what the left does.
We simply want this story to remain only one thing: the community, made of a hospital, a newspaper, a team of professionals, made a race against time and saved lives. That’s it.
The rest – rights, certifications, costs and controversy – should shut up in the face of the undeniable superiority of the sacrosanct right to life. If you don’t share don’t ask us, but to the people who – thank goodness – are still breathing.
Thank you all for the support anyway. You have written me so many, over 2000 I believe, I don’t know if I can read everything and thank everyone. Let’s focus on the real heroes, those who save lives, who work 16 hours of hospital shifts and are day and night next to the sick and praise them. A big thank you.” – C. Fracassi

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3D printed copies, left; original with C. Fracassi, right

I don’t normally just copy someone else’s words and post them here. I’m “supposed to” write about bicycling, but I can’t ride right now. I work in a hospital (though can’t work right now). I don’t really save lives. I just do my job (well, except for now…); just as you do; just as Mr Fracassi says he is doing. Some people just doing their job have a bigger influence on the world than others. I don’t want the work of Fracassi, Ramaioli, and Temporelli to go unnoticed.

P.S. Welcome to spring (or fall if you are south of the equator), which arrived at 2249 last night, my local time.