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Yet another unexpected and random ramble (with gratitude)

Wow, that was gratifying (again).

Patreon sent money yesterday and your contributions have barely dropped at all. One new contributor even signed up in the last few weeks.

It’s not large in terms of dollars. But my lord, your moral support for me and my mostly inactive blog nearly move me to tears.

Yes, keep this up and I’ll have to start blogging again.

In fact … well, more about that in a moment.

—–

In the meantime, the human race goes on being governed by its collective amygdalas and the rest of its limbic system rather than its individual cerebra.

Despite quite a bit of common sense being written about the real dangers of Covid-19, hysteria reigns. Here in the PNW we’re living in Hysteria Central, but the panic seems to be spreading much faster than the disease. How are things where you are?

I don’t mean to minimize the illness. It is desperately deadly to the old and already-ill. With my lungs damaged by an ugly bout of whooping cough when I was 11, I’m personally terrified of all respiratory illnesses, right down to the common cold. They tend to hit my bronchial tubes in deep and scary ways. But our collective loss of perspective is far scarier!

Typical, though. Sigh. And just part & parcel with the gobsmacking, unthinking, innumerate stupidity of those who imagine themselves to be our opinion leaders.

—–

Still, this is the sort of thing our preps are for. Not so much the end of the world as the end of sanity and social stability.

Do your preps include hand sanitizers, antibacterial wipes, multi-gallons of Clorox, and closets full of Kleenex?

—–

And isn’t it absolutely an Amazing Coincidence that the presidential race went from (so-called) “moderate” multitudes to Bernie and Biden in seconds flat this week?

Yes, okay, poor little Tulsi is over there frantically waving her arms and shouting, “I’m still here!” But she’s not getting any attention, though she did manage a delegate or two from … American Samoa??? (A place I’ve actually been, BTW.)

And isn’t is odd that hardly any articles are mentioning the last-minute calls and sit-downs with now-departed candidates by the likes of Harry Reid, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama?And no word at all about what deals have been offered and accepted. Will we see Mayor Pete in a cabinet post in a Biden administration? Or Ms. “I treat my underlings like sh*t” Klobuchar in a diplomatic post?

And if Biden does chance to win both nomination and election (which I doubt), who’ll be set up as his VP — to become the real president when poor, corrupt, handsy, decrepit, generally weird old Joe is declared too senile to serve?

—–

Ah, holy democracy in action. The choice between two near-octagenarians who’ve risen to high office without ever accomplishing anything of note in their entire lives and Donald Trump.

Now tell me this is a country and a political system at the height of its powers.

I swear, though I can’t imagine v*ting for him except in the most dire straits, the combination of the endlessly silly Dem tantrums against him and the pathetic specimens the Dems have managed to marshal in hopes of defeating the “greatest-ever threat to our species and our planet” are making Trump look wondrous by comparison.

—–

As to those continuing monthly contributions and blogging, though … what would you say to maybe once a week?

I do miss you guys. And I love that you go on supporting me.

Also, despite my best attempts to cultivate apathy, I’m still clearly a current-events junkie, as well as a freedomista. It’s a lifelong curse without a cure.

Besides, I’ve had an inert winter, mired in sickness. Getting back to blogging in a “lite” way might take me out of myself, and that would be welcome, too. But IF I return to semi-hemi-demi regular blogging, I’ll probably break my no-fundraisers-ever-again pledge this summer.

Your thoughts? On blogging, poly-ticks, mass hysteria, Harry and Megan, Kanye and Kim, or anything else of equally vital importance?

27 Comments

  1. Bill T
    Bill T March 6, 2020 12:56 pm

    A once a week blog would be a much appreciated treat. For me though, I wouldn’t want you to think it is in anyway required just because I haven’t stopped my monthly Patreon donation.

    As far as current events go I am wondering what happens when Bernie once again gets maneuvered out of the nomination and he goes all in for the “safe pick” Biden after he gets some back room deal like I think he did in 2016. Will all his minions realize how fake his convictions were and if they do what are they going to do. It appears that he has more than a few really hardline communists working for him not to mention Antifa. I am not looking forward to that threat at all.

  2. MP
    MP March 6, 2020 1:10 pm

    I would love to see even a once-a-week posting, Claire. And a fundraiser would be no kind of off-putting at all…

    Bill, if my family members are any indication, NOTHING will dissuade Sanders supporters that he is anything short of messianic. (Kind of like a lot of Trump-heads, actually.) Though in some cases I don’t really know if it is just Trump Derangement Syndrome at work. From what I have seen, that is a real thing, too.

    Tulsi is an interesting case to me. She was apparently smart and articulate in the first debate (which I did not watch), then the DNC maneuvered to keep her out of any of the others even though she ticks quite a few of the “right” boxes: Woman, minority-indigenous person in fact, adequately (though not rabidly, I think) anti-gun, photogenic, … She’s even a veteran. What gives there?

  3. Jorge
    Jorge March 6, 2020 1:40 pm

    I’d love to see you blogging again, even if it is only once a week. No problem with a fund raiser either. I’m not one to do Patreon or other monthly type things but will be happy to contribute to a fund raiser

  4. E. Garrett Perry
    E. Garrett Perry March 6, 2020 1:55 pm

    The “election” is almost entertaining, from a safe-ish distance. Bearing in mind of course that I say this from a country which is currently trying to oust its PM after discovering that he’s not only a grifting corruptomaniac but a former volunteer informant for both the Czechoslovak KGB -and- the East German Stasi.

    Covid-19 has been more “amusing” yet. Lots of stock-up buying here but very little panic. People seem to be quite calm and sanguine, preparing to ride this thing out and help their neighbors do likewise. Some very breif shortages of nonperishable foodstuffs, but all restocked within 48hrs. The gov’t has banned all exports of -all- PPE and capped prices for same, along with buying up the bulk of N95 masks for use in hospitals, mostly because of panicky Germans trying their level best to strip all the hardware stores. Meanwhile every District hospital, along with most of those in major cities and the CZ Army’s Bio-Warfare and Epidemic Disease Research Center, are fully manned and stocked. Testing kits and ventilators are widely dispersed. They all have “dirty wards” established, large reserves of drugs and PPE laid by, and procedures in place for dealing with potentially thousands of cases. Some days, that Cold War-era ComBloc paranoia about American bio-weapons really pays off. Folks here are preparing to isolate, quarantine, and help out their neighbors: in my little village we already have arrangements in place for who delivers groceries to whom, who looks after which kiddos, and what to do if a general quarantine is declared as happened in northern Italy. The parents of the village are even talking together about what to do if the schools are kept closed following the end of Spring Break next week.

    Make no mistake, this thing is damned dangerous. For people over age 65, it’s as lethal as Bubonic Plague circa 1347. But folks here seem to understand that panicking, over-buying, gouging, and other such foolishness will only make the problem worse. They’re also not at all shy about staying home from work when sick, and weren’t even before this.

    The US, on the other hand, has no procedures in place, almost zero testing ability, almost zero pre-positioned resources, a shortage of ventilators, no mechanism at all for supporting those (especially in the incredibly exposed “service sector”) who must take time away from work, a gargantuan underground of illegal immigrants who dare not seek care, a huge and vocal anti-vaccinationist community who seem to either think that this is a big nothingburger cureable with essential oils and onions down the socks OR a hyperlethal ChiCom composite bioweapon utilising nanobots and 5G, and a pray-the-gay-away Nehemiah Scudder wannabe in charge of it all.

    I hate to say it, but y’all are about to take it on the chin, and hard. This is probably going to be the biggest cultural and demographic shock to the system that American culture has had since the War Between the States. I hope to Christ that I’m wrong, and I’m more than willing to be convinced of it…but I just don’t see how.

  5. brew
    brew March 6, 2020 2:17 pm

    Covid-19 ? Never hear of it…. 😉

    And the ‘heads in the sand’ types think people won’t fight to the death over the last rolls of toilet paper….

    “Hand sanitizer swiped from dispensers in Lane County Public Health building in Eugene”
    kval.com/news/local/hand-sanitizer-swiped-from-dispensers-in-lane-county-public-health-building-in-eugene

    bd

  6. E. Garrett Perry
    E. Garrett Perry March 6, 2020 2:30 pm

    Literal knife-fights have broken out in Austrailia over TP. I teach English at a Czech/Spanish company which manufactures and distributes hand soap, sanitizer, floor/surface cleaner and bleach: they’ve been running at 130% of their usual capacity for two weeks now, and started tipping the mailwomen with hand sanitizer. According to a student in the shipping dept, hospitals in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France are snapping up every bottle of sanitizer and surface cleaner they can find, and hand soap/sanitizer is flying out the door by the actual truckload headed to Czech shops. Folks seem mostly to be utilizing the “buy one extra” method of stocking up on things like that, so there’s a bit of extra load on the system but nothing crazy like in Italy or Germany.

  7. BillT
    BillT March 6, 2020 3:34 pm

    MP
    The Bernie fanatics are just what I am concerned about, how they going to act when their life ambition to make us Cuba goes down the drain because the big money corporations won’t let it happen. We are talking about people that don’t play well with others when they don’t get their way. I am thinking that they will go looking for an AK. Hopefully I am wrong, but history is to much of an indicator that it could be ugly.

    Have a grea weekend

  8. kentmcmanigal
    kentmcmanigal March 6, 2020 4:02 pm

    Do what you want. We love you regardless.

  9. Comrade X
    Comrade X March 6, 2020 4:03 pm

    To quote Sir Wilder;

    “Corona Virus – A big deal? It might be. I just saw that Corona® beer had changed their name to Bubonic Plague”

    Once a week would be fantastic! Just don’t forget the PUPPIES!!

  10. SKSK
    SKSK March 6, 2020 4:11 pm

    I’ve been checking this site regularly “just in case”. Imagine my complete delight in seeing you in print again. Once a week is a grand idea.

  11. Jim B.
    Jim B. March 6, 2020 7:43 pm

    Just seen a Colion Noir YouTube video, apparently Beto “The: Hell Yes we’re going to get your guns” will become Biden’s VP.

  12. Val E. Forge
    Val E. Forge March 6, 2020 7:50 pm

    Claire

    When you used the words Harry, Megan, Kim, Kanye, and IMPORTANCE in one sentence, you demonstrated you are not yet over whatever terrible malady you have.

    BillT

    You make some interesting musings on the Bernie folks. Perhaps we are, as the Chinese say, living in interesting times.

  13. Bill T
    Bill T March 6, 2020 8:17 pm

    Val E. It does seem we are living through a Chinese curse partly of their making as well.

  14. Sam Hall
    Sam Hall March 7, 2020 6:40 am

    “Yes, keep this up and I’ll have to start blogging again.” Ah, the secret conspiracy to keep Claire blogging may be working. 🙂

  15. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp March 7, 2020 6:42 am

    Blog when you feel like it. Don’t blog when you don’t feel like it. It’s always welcome treasure.

  16. Joel
    Joel March 7, 2020 7:43 am

    I went through a period year before last where I was burning out on all the time it took to find current-event blog topics, which I did solely to honor the “blog every day” rule. I didn’t want to keep doing it but also didn’t want to stop blogging entirely – so I decided to cut the parts that were getting me down and only (well, mainly) blog about gulching – and if that meant there was no daily blog fodder, so be it.

    Took a big hit on page views. But all my regular commenters stayed with me and it didn’t seem to offend anybody who bothered to mention it. So really I was just cutting dross and life went on.

    I’ll echo everybody else: Blog when and what you feel like, if you feel like it. We love to read you and know what’s going on in your life – but that places not a bit of obligation on a minute of your time.

  17. UnReconstructed
    UnReconstructed March 7, 2020 10:00 am

    Yes !

    Its so very good to read your words when I do my ‘morning rounds’.

    Thank You !

  18. SLee
    SLee March 7, 2020 12:08 pm

    If you feel like blogging, I would love to read it. If not, that’s okay as well. It’s always good to hear from you.

  19. Pat
    Pat March 9, 2020 8:46 am

    I’m more worried about Biden winning the Democrat ticket. Running as a “moderate”, he will pick another “moderate” as VP. If that VP is even remotely presidential material, that may entice many more democrats to vote. Result? Another possible confrontation between the total vote vs the electoral college — or Biden may even beat Trump, and carry other democrats with him to the Senate.

    If Sanders won, there is a good bet he would lose to Trump because people are more aware of socialism, and I think Sanders has reached his top level of fandom. Not that he won’t get more delegates, but I don’t think he can haul in many new voters to his way of thinking, and probably has lost some by now. Tomorrow’s voting may tell if that’s true.

  20. Myself
    Myself March 9, 2020 10:28 am

    I find amazing (and somewhat amusing) that anyone cares, who gets appointed to what ever office, If Sanders or Biden are placed in office they’ll have been placed there by the same people who placed Trump in office, who himself was placed there by the same people who put Obama in office.

  21. Pat
    Pat March 9, 2020 11:58 am

    That’s not the point, Myself.

    For MY self, I don’t care for any of them, and I won’t be voting. But they do impact our lives in various ways, whether we like it or not, whether we live in the boondocks or in the city.

    As during most of my adult years, I’ve been left with the choice of “rooting for” the lesser of two evils every four years — and that’s about all any of us can do.

    And then go live our lives as freely as possible.

  22. Myself
    Myself March 9, 2020 1:18 pm

    Pat,

    My point is, it doesn’t matter who is placed in these jobs, there is not a lick of difference

  23. Kevin Wilmeth
    Kevin Wilmeth March 9, 2020 1:41 pm

    Claire, I’ll echo the “blog when you’re inspired to do so” sentiment. I see blogging at least a bit as a true art, and authentic art is, at heart, the channeling of a muse. Whenever you hear yours, by all means bring her beautiful voice to life again. (The hard part, sometimes, is just knowing when that voice is authentic, and not a manifestation imposed by the noisier parts of an active mind.)

    _____________

    In re the sudden wagon-circling around Biden, it seems clear enough that all the handlers are scrambling for a viable plan in this fainting-couch chaos of their own making. Bernie’s crime is simply that he’s had enough unexpected success on his own, now, that he’s forgotten his place, which of course is nothing more than to appear on cue for the purpose of making the party’s anointed one look more palatable to the credulous; he’s become big enough that he has to be put down–publicly. It’s amusing not because he’s actually “too far left” for the party (ha!), but that he’s too bluntly honest about the direction it’s all supposed to go, and since the Hive appears to have concluded there aren’t yet enough rubes ready for The Long Game to wind down, well, he’s got to go. The audacity of the shenanigans needed to accomplish this simply shows us the magnitude of the internal problem. (That is, if it really is a problem. After all, it could yet be another part of the show; it’s not like we’re dealing with honest people, here, in the first place…)

    I can’t imagine anybody’s actually thinking of putting Biden into the general election on purpose. My guess (conjecture, of course, but hey, the popcorn’s already on the table, so have at it, eh wot?) is that he’s just being propped up temporarily to limp the party into the convention, where he can be publicly judged to be (suddenly and tragically) medically unfit for office, suitably lionized as a faithful soldier ready for retirement with honors, and then replaced by the pre-circled-wagon crowd with a True Anointed One. Everyone makes out, right? Bernie gets effectively sidestepped, Joe turns his humiliation into a Great American Hero story, and the party rallies around…

    …well, at that point, as I seem to remember some professional cretin arrogantly saying, “What difference does it make?” (shudder)

    I can’t quite make out Gabbard in all this, either. Sure, her politics are repulsive, but there does seem to be a certain honor and consistency there, and maybe the party really does simply fear that on her own she’d run away with the public and put their investments at risk. She’s an interesting X factor–or at least, at this point, she should be. (He says with full understanding that we’re so far beyond “should be”s, now, as to be firmly into the realm of the “absurd” of Voltaire’s famous quote.)

    _____________

    And in re Coronavirus…well, yes, it scares me, but not principally for any reason of epidemiology. Sure, it seems obvious enough that it’s a nasty little beast, a serious threat to people with certain vulnerabilities, and quite possibly comically under-reported…but…

    If I take a step back, and take a sober look at what appears to be a worldwide…uniformity of both the under-reporting and the hysteria…first focused on establishing a public belief in lethality far past what even the most generous numbers seem to indicate (nicely said, Bear)…then shifting to focus on the inevitable impact on world markets…then shifting further to discussions of mandated quarantine, loss of resource and manufacturing supply, and most recently the potential for unrest due to resource scarcity…

    …well, what are we always told is the solution to problems of this magnitude? Hm.

    And then there are the outré, ridiculed, but persistent claims that COVID-19 is a runaway bioweapon…and all the shifting stories and claims from governments worldwide…well, initially shifting; now, instead, coalescing around the “under-reported” leitmotif and moving toward increased discussions of mandatory quarantine…

    Hell yes, I’m scared of Coronavirus, the worldwide phenomenon…because somehow, it has the feel of a goddamn ranging shot.

  24. larryarnold
    larryarnold March 12, 2020 10:25 pm

    Opened my email this afternoon and the first seven emails were about Covid-19, instead of being spam. Now that’s a serious symptom. 😉

    Wal-Mart and OfficeMax announced “we’re serious about your health so we’re doing a lot more cleaning and if we don’t have cleaning stuff in stock we will soon or you can order online for store delivery.”

    The city issued a “what you should do” (handwashing, etc.) press release.

    A couple of event cancellations.

    My alma mater sent a link to their c-19 procedures. I haven’t looked yet, since my daughter works there and I have a more direct line of communication.

    And then there are the Brackitz folks (think Legos crossed with erector sets):

    Lots of families are preparing for being home because of COVID-19.
    Whether someone in your family is sick or your child’s school is closed, you may be home with looking for activities to keep your young learners engaged.
    In response to these potentially challenging times, Brackitz wants to help you keep your little ones entertained and learning, by offering a 30% discount on all on ALL BRACKITZ SETS.
    With every order, we will send you free extra pieces and fast and free shipping!

    https://brackitz.com/

    I notice universities are extending their spring breaks by days or weeks, and trying to empty their dorms. It would make a lot more sense to me to cancel the break and keep everyone put, but what do I know?

    My county cancelled a big anhydrous ammonia spill disaster drill scheduled for Friday. Now that, I agree with. Emergency vehicles running around with first responders in haz-mat gear is not what the public needs to see right now.

    I agree with the others, Claire. I will treasure whatever wisdom you feel comfortable providing.

  25. LibertyNews
    LibertyNews March 15, 2020 9:15 pm

    Blog as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. Please don’t feel like you have to fufill some kind of obligation.

    As far as Patreon goes, well gosh I seem to have lost my login in a boating accident, sorry, can’t reduce the amount 😉

  26. John
    John March 16, 2020 1:21 am

    @ LibertyNews,

    Same problem here…

  27. Greg
    Greg March 26, 2020 12:40 pm

    Hola Claire,

    After a few tries, I had given up on seeing more posts for a while so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that you had made several posts since the last time I visited. Just to echo what has already been said by several others: Post as frequently or infrequently as you want and do whatever fund-raising you think is necessary. I don’t think I’m putting words in anyone’s mouth to say that your audience here will respect any decisions you make.

    Greg

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