COVID Archives - Page 10 of 10 - Ramblin' with Roger

Why people reject Christianity, part 38

an abomination

As a Christian, I know that there are a lot of understandable reasons why people reject Christianity. Pedophile priests, homophobic preachers… do I need to haul out the litany? That said, a couple of recent examples have distressed me more than usual.

ITEM: “Believe in Divine Immunity”: Trump-Supporting Megachurch Pastor Tells Congregation NOT To Take COVID Vaccine

“Guillermo Maldonado, the Florida megachurch pastor, and self-declared apostle… told his congregation not to take the soon-to-be-available vaccine for the COVID-19 virus because it is part of a plan to prepare people to accept the biblical Mark of the Beast.

“Maldonado, who mocked members of his own congregation for staying away from church in the early days of the pandemic, used his Sunday sermon to warn that the COVID-19 vaccine will ‘alter your DNA’ as globalists set about ‘preparing the structure for the Antichrist.'”

I’ve long found the obsession with the apocalypse to be theologically obscene. This one mixes in absurd technological blather.

That’s why they allow firing squads?

ITEM: Trumpkin pastor calls for Democrats and journalists to be executed

“On the day before Thanksgiving, [Rick Wiles] called for Trump to have Democrats and journalists lined up and shot [because] they are secretly in bed with Beijing.

“The Christian [sic] pastor made the remarks during an episode of his TruNews program… as he discussed Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. Wiles also pointed out that the Justice Department has created a new rule allowing for firing squads to be used in federal executions…

“We already knew that Wiles is nothing more than a Nazi masquerading as a pastor… This is domestic terrorism, straight up.”

ITEM: An Ohio group called We the People Convention took out a full-page ad in the Washington Times (a flagship conservative newspaper).

They are asking Trump “to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote.

“OK, any crazy group can publish an ad in any paper that will take their money. But recently pardoned felon Michael Flynn retweeted the ad with the comment ‘Freedom never kneels except for God.'” The fact that they don’t have a prayer of a chance of reversing the outcome of the election doesn’t seem to stop them from trying anyway.

For those of you who think everything will change come 20 Jan 2021, I’m afraid not. We’re dealing with an extensive toxic mindset. And when it’s conflated with a sense of “God’s will”, we’re in deep trouble. This Newspeak is an abomination. The definition of abomination is “a thing that causes disgust or hatred.”

These purported men of God are disgusting purveyors of hate. If their goal is to “bring people to the Kingdom”, they are failing miserably.

I’m dreaming of a COVID Christmas

When will we reach widespread immunization?

Though I knew it was possible, seeing the spike in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths has been demoralizing. More to the point, watching the numbers in some categories more than double from October to November in Albany County is acutely troubling.

Since my father-in-law died of a non-COVID-related disease on April 22 of this year, my wife had driven out to Oneonta, NY to help her mom with the cleaning and shopping. Right before Thanksgiving, our family was discussing plans. My daughter and I thought that making the 70-mile trek wasn’t that good an idea.

My wife said that maybe she’d go alone for a day or two. We believed that she was missing the concern. My daughter is going to school at home. I don’t go to many places. My wife, conversely, is going to work every day, teaching students face-to-face and dealing with colleagues whose protocols while not at school are unknown. It was my MIL who finally put the kibosh on the trip.

A friend of mine is a nurse at Albany Medical Center. On December 1, they had a strike action over many issues, most of which predated COVID. In a non-epidemic period, I would have joined the picket line. Not now.

Nervous

My Grammarly account analyzed my writings from the second to the third week in November.

1. Neutral 15‌% +5%
2. Formal 14‌% +1%
3. Confident 13‌% -6% that’s about right
4. Friendly 8‌% -2%
5. Optimistic 8‌% -5% certainly accurate
6. Worried 8‌% +4% yup
7. Sad 6‌% +2% I’ll accept that

Even the places I’ve gone to in the past – CVS, grocery store, takeout restaurant food – I visit less often. In part, it’s because of the vaccines on the horizon. It seems that people are getting cocky about when we’ll get back to “normal.” There will be enough doses to treat about six percent of New Yorkers, primarily health care workers and the elderly in facilities, before the end of 2020.

As someone over 65, I expect/hope to get at least one of the two necessary doses by St. Patrick’s Day 2021. And, barring new information, I will take the injections when they are made available.

This article from FORBES is consistent with some other pieces I’ve read. When will we reach widespread immunization— roughly 70% of the population? In the spring? By July 4? In a year? Or will it take far longer? Will “the overwhelming majority of people” elect to be inoculated?

But the “surge upon a surge” that is happening now, I fear, will become worse during the December holidays and the weeks thereafter. I already know ours will be a low-key COVID Christmas and New Years. I’m hoping others can just hang on just a little while longer with social distancing, mask-wearing, and other precautions.

A most peculiar Halloween

Math is everywhere

Ah, the peculiar Halloween of 2020. My wife and I mused on what we would do if we were to actually get a trick or treater at our door. I considered looking on YouTube for videos on building a candy catapult, but I opted against that.

I talked with a friend on the phone who was distraught during our previous discussion. He’s happier now.

At some point, I caught the news that Sean Connery had died. I was sad. Yet, here’s a confession: I’ve never seen ANY James Bond film. But I liked his advocacy for Scotland. He was a hoot in that third Indiana Jones film. I also enjoyed the movie Finding Forrester (2000). Here are 10 movie quotes.

I printed out three recipes for my wife. One was from Australia and had a reference to 160 Celsius. What’s that in Fahrenheit? I asked my phone, but it kept hearing “Once it.” Heck with that, I’m using pen and paper. I need to multiply the Celsius temp by 9/5, then add 32, which gets me 320°F. Hey, I still remember!

In the afternoon, a man in his 40s or 50s who I had never seen before rang the doorbell. He wanted to know if he could do some yard work. Immediately, I said “no thanks.” Then I thought about it. 1) He obviously needed the work. 2) I could afford to pay him.

And most importantly, 3) I HATE raking. It is what my economics teacher might call the “law of diminishing returns.” The more I do it, the less satisfying it is. I went to the front porch. The guy was already four houses up the street. I called, and he came back. He swept the porch and the sidewalk, as well as raking the lawn. Money well spent.

I did a couple of Venmo transaction for my wife so she could fund some teaching activities. I’ve yet to use it for my own needs.

The total was zero

Walking to the bank and back, I was struck by how few people were outside. It was a chilly day, but still. And I was reminded that it took a pandemic for my bank to dispense five- and ten-dollar bills, not just twenties.

I’d purchased about $30 of candy earlier in the week. NOBODY came to our door, compared to about 240 last year. Perhaps it was the fact that there were alternative activities.

From 3 pm to 5 pm the City of Albany will partner with a variety of sponsors and community organizations to host Halloween events in 11 City Parks.

“As per guidance published by New York State and the Centers for Disease Control, the City of Albany is calling on residents to avoid high-risk activities to help prevent the spread COVID-19, such as door-to-door trick-or-treating or trunk-or-treats, attending crowded costume parties held indoors, or going to an indoor haunted house where people may be crowded together. “

I had missed the memo. On one hand, I was really happy not having to worry about opening the door. On the other hand, I missed seeing the costumes. No satisfying some people, I guess.

My wife and I went out about 9 p.m. to see the full moon. A little while later, we went to bed. But I could not sleep at all. It really wasn’t the noisy next-door neighbors in their backyard. Maybe it was the over 98,000 COVID cases the day before. Or my fear of what the body politic was going to do this week. A peculiar Halloween, indeed

My sports calendar is off-kilter

Baseball of the 1960s and ’70s

Bob Gibson.image Recently, I realized that the shifting or cancellation of certain sporting events in 2020 has thrown my biorhythms off-kilter. And I don’t even have to particularly care about the events to be affected.

March Madness means all those ads on CBS, the familiar theme music, and the beginning of spring. But I didn’t hear it because the tournament was canceled. In tennis, I know the 4th of July is coming because Wimbledon has started. Nope, canceled.

The Kentucky Derby, and Free Comic Book Day, were both on the first Saturday in May. The horse race was pushed back to September 5? And the other Triple Crown traces changed not only the dates but the race lengths.

COVID has affected how I watch sports. I remember looking at the standings in Major League Baseball early in the truncated season. Some teams had played about a dozen games. The St. Louis Cardinals, though, were only 2-3, because either they or their opponents tested positive.

Usually, I start paying attention to MLB in September, when it started in early April. But I never saw a single game to its completion because the season began in July. Yet I remember how much I love the symmetry and simplicity of baseball.

Three deaths

I was reminded of this when I noted the death of three Hall of Fame players in October 2020. My team when I grew up was the New York Yankees. Whitey Ford pitched for them from before when I was born until 1967 and for no other team. He was their best pitcher.

1961 was his finest year. He won the Cy Young award. But he also had the most wins with 25, the best win-loss percentage at .864, and pitched more innings, 263, than anyone in the league.

When the Yankees began their decline in the mid-1960s, other teams came to the fore, including the St. Louis Cardinals. Bob Gibson pitched for no other teams. In fact, in an All-Star Game, he wouldn’t even shake his catcher’s hand because the guy played for another team during the season.

There are only two pitching records I can recite without looking. One is Cy Young’s 511 lifetime wins as a pitcher. The other is that, in 1968, Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA. This means that for every nine innings pitched, he only gave up a little over one run. And he threw over 304 innings that year. MLB lowered the mounds the following season to give hitters a fighting chance. Gibson completed every game he started between 1966 and 1974.

In the early 1970s, the team from Cincinnati, known as the Big Red Machine, came to the fore. One of the smallest players, Joe Morgan, was one of the best. Traded from the Houston Astros for the 1972 season, he did almost everything to win.

Morgan led the league in on-base percentage four times, often aided by the base on balls. Yet in 1975., one of two years in a row he was league MVP, he was 4th in batting average and 1st in base-stealing success. He received 5 Gold Gloves, all while with the Reds, for his defensive prowess.

This has been a difficult year for the history of Major League Baseball, and each of these players loomed large in my youth and young adulthood.

Seeking “normalcy” in Lake George

Where are they?

When my wife suggested we trek to Lake George Saturday morning, I asked why. She was looking for a sense of “normalcy.” We hadn’t gone anywhere in the last seven months, save for her fortnightly treks to visit her mother 80 minutes away. Our daughter had gone there a handful of times; I went twice.

After lunch, the three of us plus my daughter’s friend Tee set off on the hour-long journey up I-87, the Northway. We saw an automotive parade for TRUMP 2020 on I-90, not that far from our house, which we became inadvertently a part of. Apparently, there was a rally at some abandoned mall before or after our observation. This took place while the incumbent was at Walter Reed Hospital.

Lake George is a lovely place I’ve been going to for much of my life, even before I moved to Albany in 1979. It is charming and not overly “touristy.” I attended at least a couple of conferences there. While my daughter and Tee hung out by the water, my wife and I went walking. It was disconcerting.

I’ll exclude those people not wearing masks because they were eating or smoking cigarettes or alone on one of the large boats or under the age of five. I daresay that the number of people wearing a mask while they were around people outnumbered the maskless by only about 3 to 2. Tee and my daughter never took off their masks from the time wey left the car until we returned, so uncomfortable they were with the other tourists’ masklessness.

Unsafe

And it was crowded because it was a nice early autumn day, despite bouts of quick rainstorms. EVERYONE needed to get out of Dodge, it seemed, and they picked Lake George as their respite. My wife and I got away from the people for a brief time and saw a nifty partial rainbow across the lake. It was so interesting – short but wide – that a couple people stopped their cars in the middle of a traffic circle to jump out and take some photos.

It was a nice time, but less so because of other people’s behavior. “Normalcy” is difficult to come by when I see headlines such as this in the Boston Globe: “If he believes he doesn’t need a mask, good for him.” It’s because, after all the deaths and illnesses, some folks “still aren’t sure about masks.” And that made me feel unsafe, especially this past weekend.

It’ll be a while before I’ll be willing to venture from my cave again. I’m the very definition of underlying conditions. I do understand the Weekly Sift guy’s sense of Schadenfreude, even as IMPOTUS says he’s finally “learned so much.” I’m trying NOT to feel that way, I really am…