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If stupidity is a crime, is benevolence the pardon?

Obviously, when someone does something really stupid, those of us who proclaim not to be stupid will moan and complain, but will typically bail out “the stupid oaf.” 

Example one: If a dumbass on a motorcycle tries unsuccessfully to beat out a train, we (society in general) rush him to the hospital, do the necessary surgeries, and essentially forgive all of his uninsured hospital bills. Yes, a lot will complain, but in the end, taking care of that dimwit and essentially paying for his poor choice is the benevolent thing to do. After all stupidity is not a crime.

Does it matter why he tried to beat out the train? 

Hmmm, basically no, but what if he had tried to cross the train tracks in an effort to save his mother from being beaten up and mugged? Most likely we would still judge him to be a stupido-citizen, but would now cover his consequent hospital expenses with a benevolent smile on our faces. “He made a poor choice, but because he had a good heart and his intent was good, we should not castigate him, remembering that stupidity is not a crime.”

All that agree with me at this point, raise your hand. Remember your choice as we proceed to example two . . . student loan debt. 

Well not really student loan debt (I believe that the debt accumulated by the students themselves should be repaid in full), but rather the debt that the student’s parents took on through a federal college loan program called Parent Plus. This year for the first time the U.S. Department of Education released information on borrowing taken on by parents on their child-student’s behalf. In many cases these Parent Plus loans are well above what the student can borrow through the federal government which is capped at $31,000. The Education Department requires only a scant check of a parent’s credit history before extending loans, and it requires no assessment of their ability to repay these loans. Hmmm, a setup for big trouble. Duh!

A typical response from a parent who cannot ever hope to repay their Parent Plus loan would go something like this: “Borrowing this money to pay for college expenses was the only way that he/she would get that degree that would insure success in the future. How could I possibly not do it?” Now some are going to say that this is a manipulative response by the parent, but nonetheless it is most likely true. The chance that a child from a poor family will continue to be poor is significantly reduced with that college degree.

I would contend that a lot of these mostly uneducated parents, or often just a single parent, never really understood that they were never going to be able to pay back this Parent Plus loan, . . . but stupidity is not a crime. Nevertheless, let’s assume that they did realize that taking out this Parent Plus loan was reckless, but they were trying to save their son/daughter from a future life of poverty. Should we, as a country, be benevolent and forgive their debt, like we forgave the hospital expenses of that reckless motorcyclist trying to save his mother? Hmmm.

No, YMBAVA is not a misprint. I am not referring to a song by the Village People. However, if YMBAVA were put to music, I guess you could dance to it . . . . if only someone could figure out how to form the letter ‘B’ with one’s arms. FYI: I tried and failed.

More to the point, YMBAVA is a new bill proposed by Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX).

From the Daily Wire, Babin is quoted:

“This is not a Republican bill this should be a bipartisan effort to make this election process a lot more transparent When we have the perception out there by so many millions of Americans — 74 million plus had voted for President Trump — to try to clean up our election process. It is absolutely inexcusable that we would have an election process in this country, where we have had a peaceful transfer of power between presidents and administrations for 240 plus years, and now all of a sudden, we have an enormous number of individuals in this country that don’t trust the election process. Not good,” Babin said.

Babin continuued:

“Everyone in this Congress — everyone in this country — should want an assurance that dead people are not voting. And we don’t have that assurance right now because so many of these voter lists have just not been updated, whether it’s intentional, and whether it’s laziness indolence are just, you know, nonchalance. We need to make sure that these voter lists are accurate and that deceased individuals are not on their voting.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg for this, this past election,” he said. “We better get this right are the consequences to our free democratic republic will be dire.”

BTW: YMBAVA stands for “You Must Be Alive to Vote Act”

So far this bill as eight co-sponsees – all Republicans. The question is not whether any Democrats will co-sponsor this bill, but rather whether any Democrats will vote for it. 

Be that as it may, one thing is for sure, whereas YMCA is a popular wedding reception song, YMBAVA will never catch on as a wake or funeral song . . . at least not in blue states.

On 12/3/20 my local newspaper reported on two separate issues, both related to the Covid pandemic. What made this of interest to me was the apparent incongruity when comparing the actual statistics and the actions of “those that know best.”

First off, our county like the rest of California is experiencing an increase of Covid cases. As best I can remember the increase in cases as the weather turned colder was anticipated by just about everybody . . . everybody apparently except those who are “in charge” of sending children back to school. Here in San Diego “those that know best” concerning children and when to send them back to school (the School District) had chosen early January, 2021.! (While trying to be kind, I am having difficulty choosing a worse date.)

Reconnoiter! 

Early January is obviously winter, and the school-aged children will have just finished with the expected family get-togethers that are ubiquitous during the holiday season. Ergo, the previously “well thought out” plan to send children back to in-person learning in early January, seemed not only questionable, but . . . err, trying to again be kind . . .  downright stupid!

Reconnoiter!

Surprise! Surprise!  The School District just announced that they are no longer planning on re-opening in-person instruction in January because of the increase in Covid cases. (BTW: the local newspaper repeatedly uses the word, “surge” to describe increases, but to me this word has lost its meaning as every increase in the last six months has been referred to as “a surge.”) Anyway the all-knowing School District is again delaying, delaying, delaying because of an increase in Covid cases that had been predicted by just about everybody. They are now planning on announcing another new reopening timeline in mid January . . . I guess that they figure that the present “surge” will be over by then.

In the newspaper on the same day there was the daily update on the different age ranges from 0 to 80+ and the hospitalizations and deaths for these age ranges. 

The following will focus only on the ages of the school children:

Age 0-9 (mostly preschool and early grade school) – 3583 cases with 83 hospitalizations and 0 (zero) deaths. In other words these young children who contract Covid have only a 2.3% chance of being hospitalized and a 0% chance of dying.

Age 10-19 (mostly middle school and high school) – 8531 cases with 81 hospitalizations and 0 (zero) deaths. In other words these children have only a very low  0.95% chance of being hospitalized, and a 0% chance of dying.

After reading these up to date stats for Covid and school children, can somebody please explain to me why school children are not back in school . . . not back in school months ago? If they would have returned to school back in September as I had suggested back then, perhaps “those that know best” would not be trapped on this delay, delay, delay treadmill.

Reconnoiter!

Some are just wondering and some will actually ask the common question:

“If I get Covid 2 can I get reinfected with Covid 2 again at a later date?”

The answer is “yes,” however do not be dismayed because at this point there has been only twenty-five documented confirmed  reinfections world wide. Certainly there has to have been more than twenty-five, but these 25 are these the “confirmed” ones. At this point there are approximately 500  “suspected” reinfections. (To be “confirmed” a case requires genomic sequencing of both samples, which is often not possible.) 

I just read in the Wall Street Journal about one of these reinfections. His name was Fernando Gaviria. He is a professional bicyclist who had his initial Covid infection back in February in Abu Dhabi. He was hospitalized for two weeks and so it is reasonable to assume that his infection was the real deal. He recovered and had resumed competitive cycling, getting repeatedly tested according to protocol. He had more than a dozen negative tests until October when his PCR test came back positive. This positive test was repeated multiple times – all positive. Mr. Gaviria was asymptomatic. The only reason that he was tested was because testing before races is  protocol for professional cycling. Interestingly, Mr. Gaviria is classified as “suspected,” because his sample from February is not available for genomic sequencing.

Scary? Not really, as reinfection is extremely, extremely rare. Moreover these documented twenty-five have had only mild symptoms and have not been very sick, or as was the case with Fernando Gaviria, asymptomatic. Here apparently the immune system has had a chance to kick in and thus avoid severe symptoms.

In 2003 there was Covid 1 pandemic. Interestingly the immune response to Covid 1 has been documented to last for 17 years, and counting. It is likely that the immune response to Covid 2 will be similar . . . i.e. it will last a long time also. Obviously we have not had 17 years to follow its immune response as Covid 2 has been with us for most likely less than a year.

What do we know at this point?

A recent study out of U.C. Berkeley has shown that the B-cell related antibody to the spike protein of Covid 2 has lasted for six months and the antibody levels were not waning but rather were still going up at six months. The T-cell response to Covid 2 starts to decrease after 3-5 months and then levels off. These B & T responses to Covid 2 are consistent with the body’s response to other known viruses.

So what is the best response to the question, “If I get Covid, can I get it again?:

• At this point it appears to be extremely unlikely that anyone will contract Covid 2 a second time, and if this were to happen, the high likelihood would be that it would be quite mild.
• There is no reason to take up biking as a preventative measure.

Over the Thanksgiving four-day holiday there was a huge youth soccer tournament in the Phoenix area. A soccer tournament during Covid? There were about 500 teams that had signed up to play in that tournament, and only 40 of these teams were from Arizona. This means that about 460 of these teams were from out of state, and most were from California.

Why would one or both Socal parents drive approximately 300 miles to Phoenix, spend two or three nights in a hotel, eat three meals a day in various restaurants, all to watch their child or their children play soccer? Likewise, those who were from Norcal had the same hotel and meal expenses in addition to round trip airline tickets to Phoenix? Why?

I am sure that there would be a multitude of varying answers as to the why, but in general they went because the kids wanted to play soccer . . . or perhaps, more precisely, the kids needed to play soccer.

For you see here in California, “those who know best” mandated that the kids could practice soccer, but they forbade participation in any competitive games. When I first heard of this ridiculousness, I immediately asked why myself why someone who basically appeared  to know little if anything about kids and sports would be in charge of something like this. 

What did they expect them to do?

Is this an example of simple naïveté or just plain-ass dumbness by “those that know best?” I have my opinion, but I will let you make up your own minds. 

If in two weeks there is an increase in Covid cases in California, these same dumb asses will tell us that it is because not enough of us were wearing masks indoors between bites of turkey. I doubt that we will hear anything from “those that know best” in Sacramento about the 460 youth soccer teams that they essentially forced to Phoenix. If the Phoenix youth soccer tournament is mentioned, those who went will be castigated for going by “those that know best.” 

In response, I say, “What did they expect?”

One wonders if California youth traveling out of state to play competitive  sports is limited to “soccer crazies?” Err . . . no, actually there were two youth baseball tournaments in Yuma, Az. in October and two more scheduled for December. If the youth who are into baseball cannot play games here in California, I would fully expect that California teams would travel to Yuma.

“Up in the mornin’ and out to school

The teacher is teachin’ the Golden Rule

American history and practical math

You study’ em hard and hopin’ to pass”

So sang Chuck Berry in his 1957 pop song, School Days …

but not so these days, as school days are not the same in 2020.

In 2020 with the no in-person school model and the various hybrid models, how much are kids losing?  Are they actually losing anything?  

Does it matter?

McKinsey & Co. estimate that students in the US who do not receive full-time, in-person instruction until 2021 will lose about seven months of learning. But that loss won’t be equal across all groups. With that level of disruption, expect that white students, on average, will lose about six months of learning, Hispanic students about nine months, and Black students up to ten months of learning. Low income students may fall behind by more than a year. There are a range of factors, e.g. wi-fi accessibility, high-speed internet, availability of adult to help, etc., many of which end up challenging students of color and low-income students more than their white, wealthier peers.

Are school kids losing anything over the long term because of not going back to school?

From Yahoo/Finance, Oct. 20,2020

According to a new report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), there is a financial trade-off to school closures: thousands of dollars of lost earnings to children currently in primary and secondary school.

By the beginning of October those closures have cost students between $43,000 and $57,000 in their future earnings, depending on their grade. That’s between 4% and 5% of their future estimated earnings. Younger students, the report says, lose more than their older classmates. And as schools stay closed around the country, the costs continue to accumulate.

For each month that schools continue to remain closed, students lose an additional $12,000 to $15,000 from their future earnings, the Penn Wharton model calculates.

If they stay closed through the 2020-2021 school year, children would lose nearly $200,000, taking off close to 15% of their projected future lifetime earnings.

“School Days” … Horrors! 

In 2020, Chuck Berry wouldn’t recognize the lyrics to his own song!

The other day I happened to see two adjacent articles both concerning the Wuhan virus. Granted there are a myriad of these coronavirus articles every day, but these caught my eye because they were both involving changes. I am sure that most of the Covid rule-makers are trying to do a good job, but when they change course in the middle of the stream, it tends to cause a further collapse of trust in what they say. 

Yes, they’re trying, but their track record is not too good.

The first article had to do with what is meant by “close contact.” Close contact use to mean “anyone who was within six feet of an infected individual for fifteen continuous minutes.” However there was apparently a case in a Vermont prison where a guard caught it from a prisoner, but did not meet the “close contact” criterion. So what does the CDC do next? . . . With one apparent exception, they change the definition! I guess this is reasonable because they’re trying. However it makes me think, “How did they come up with the original definition of “close contact?” Did they throw a dart at a dartboard? The problem is that those who actually pay attention to the CDC, now pay less attention.

The second article again had to do with the CDC. This question is, “Whether or not school children who have been in contact with someone with Covid-19, have to stay quarantined at home for two weeks. The problem here is that some parents and teachers have complained that two weeks for school children is too disruptive to their education, and two weeks also presents problems child-care challenges. How did they arrive at two weeks in the first place? Was it the same dart board . . . or perhaps was it like “pin the tail on the virus?”

“Like many aspects of Covid-19, the understanding by the experts continues to evolve.” (Translation: Public health officials may not always be right, but they’re trying!)

State turned for the next change . . . it should only take a week or so.

The helter-skelter-“Zoom, sit in front of a computer” way of educating students is just not cutting it. According to those that live there, this seems to be true across the country, from the East Coast, through the Midwest, and out to the West Coast. Besides the inevitable consistent ubiquitous “technical difficulties,” teachers across the country are not presently, and will not be able to cover the material that they usually can cover in a typical school year. The estimates that I have received indicate that, on average, less than 50% of the expected material will be adequatelycovered. At the end of this school year, for example, most fifth graders will not have learned what is expected in a typical fifth grade school year. What will inevitably happen? Obviously a majority of these fifth graders will be promoted to sixth grade where they will start off considerably behind the usual sixth grade eight ball next year. Does anyone think that during the next school year, they will then learn 100+% of the sixth grade material before proceeding into seventh grade? Et cetera, et cetera. In other words most students will never be able to escape from this canyon of woefully inadequate “Zoom-sit-in-front-of-computer-screen” way of learning. Their education may well be behind forever, and worse, the depth of this ravine will be much worse for those children in lower income families.

Is there an answer here? An answer that will be acceptable to the teacher’s unions and to parents? Nothing will ever be acceptable to everyone. Perhaps the wisest and the most prudent thing to do is to just call this year “a wash.” 

Let me explain:

For example, a student presently now in fifth grade this year has already started fifth grade this past September considerably behind because of his/her forced sitting at home, doing basically nothing, from last March through June, while still actually in fourth grade.

Then during this present year, of Zoom or Zoom/hybrid, he/she will most likely fall further behind (<50% of the fifth grade material is expected to be covered during the present academic year). Why not just have this present “fifth grade” student start off the following academic year (Sept. 2021), again in fifth grade? In other words, “this academic year will be a wash.” There will not be any peer derision because the individual will be repeating a grade, as repeating the grade will be the norm.

Now without question this “wash year” plan will not be acceptable to all. 

However, the main question should be, “in general, will students be better off with this year being ‘a wash?’”

From my point of view the answer is . . . “absolutely, yes!”

Now granted for some private-school, charter-school, and home-schooled students this will not be a wasted year, and if the parents of these students wished that they proceed along their normal expected year-to-year schedule, so be it. (If I were paying for my son/daughter to be educated in a private school, I probably would not want to pay for fifth grade twice.) The decision as to whether or not a student advances from fifth grade to sixth grade in these certain situations, would, by necessity, have to be left to their responsible parents. 

In the end, years down the road, however, the ultimate effect of a “wash year” would be that the vast majority of present-day students would graduate high school at age nineteen instead of at age eighteen. Is that really such a big deal?

Even though I knew something like this was coming, I did not expect it so overwhelmingly authoritarian. I guess I temporarily forgot that I live in California where freedom is becoming less and less of an option . . . even in one’s own home. According to this mandate, “Guidance for Public Gatherings,” our Governor’s Department of Public Health, has mandated multiple “rules” that need to be followed in the coming Thanksgiving season.

(The directives from the guidance I am about to discuss are not even optional. They are absolutely mandatory. The guidance states all Californians “must comply with the following requirements,” as well as those put forth by local health jurisdictions, even if they’re more restrictive.)

Hold your nose. Here they are (from Freedom Wire):

   • Just three households are permitted to attend a single gathering.

• Only interact with the same few households repeatedly, do not interact with others.
• The host must collect names and contact information for all guests for contact tracing purposes.
• All gatherings must be held outside.
• Attendees can only go inside to use the restroom – and only if they are frequently sanitized.
• People may sit under umbrellas or other outdoor coverings if 75% of the space is in the open air.
• Gathering space must be large enough to maintain 6 feet of space in all directions between each attendee.
• Shared food plates for serving may not be used during a gathering.
• Face masks are mandatory.
• Gatherings must not exceed 2 hours.
• If singing, chanting, shouting, or exercise occurs, all who participate must wear a face mask and social distance and must be at a volume at or below a normal speaking voice.
• Instrumental music is allowed only if the musician social distances and is a member of one of the households. Wind instruments are strongly discouraged

It’s difficult for me to pick out which of these mandates are the most outlandish. They are all pretty ludicrous. Who is going to actually pay any attention to this nonsensical list?

From my way of thinking, perhaps some of those who live here might actually pay some attention if Gavin Newsom, our esteemed King of Thrones, would instead have said something like this:

“With the upcoming holiday season please try to use common sense when getting together with your family members. Even though we are still in the midst of a pandemic, have a happy Thanksgiving, and stay safe.”

As many of you are aware I now have only a passing relationship with the sport’s section in my local paper. I no longer pay any attention to pro-sports, but merely peruse to sport’s section to read about college sports, especially San Diego State sports.

The flowing is quasi-sport’s related, but is not from the sport’s section, but rather from Daybreak Insider:

Kelly Stafford, wife of Matthew Stafford, the quarterback of the Detroit Lions, took to Instagram to vent about the new restrictions Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer put in place (Twitter). Limitations were placed on indoor gatherings, indoor dining restaurants, and bars (Lansing State Journal). From the New York Post: “I’m so over it. I’m over living in a dictatorship that we call Michigan,” she posted to her Instagram story Thursday, 11/19. “If you are at risk, do not leave your house until there’s a vaccine. But shutting down all these small businesses — things that people have worked their life for — shutting them down again is not the answer. Because they will not make it. So once we are able to leave our house, once this dictatorship decides to let us have some freedom, there will be nothing left … This is my opinion … I do not like living in a place where they tell me what I can and can’t do” (New York Post). Stafford later mentioned that she would be compiling the Instagram handles of local businesses and posting them to show support, and cited a friend losing their business as a source of her frustration.

Strong work, Kelly Stafford. These Covid lockdowns, etc. should be all about trade-offs, but they are not. They are not about balancing cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to Covid against the litany of destruction  that these lockdowns cause. I do not read about how many local businesses have gone under in the last week or month balanced against the number of local cases and the local hospital census. I only read about the latter.

Kelly Stafford is especially correct about one thing -living in certain states with Democratic governors, e.g. Michigan, is like living in a dictatorship. 

Speaking of dictatorships . . . Welcome to California.