Category Archives: Prose

daylight savings time

Holly Doyne Posted on by

sucks to put it mildly.

I really have no clue why this particular one hour shift in clock time puts me so out of whack. It isn’t like I haven’t had to deal with a lot of time zone changes in the past; often more than a single hour at a time. But the one hour of “spring forward” drives me almost around the bend and upsets my sleep cycle for days.

So here I am on a Monday what should be morning but is now afternoon based on the wishes of decades ago people who wanted more evening hours in the summer combined with the current crop of fools who think that this is a good idea. In today’s society – it doesn’t make sense. We don’t save power, whether electricity or gas. We don’t decrease accident rates; in fact the converse probably applies. What it comes down to is that certain groups of privileged seem to think that they are entitled to an extra bit of light in the evening regardless of the cost in early morning darkness, agriculture, or upset sleep schedules for about  90% of the rest of us mortals who don’t get a choice.

This one hour, for about 2-3 weeks may help those on the US West Coast who are working remotely for firms located three time zones ahead of time. Starting work at 0700 rather than 0600 if those states haven’t shifted. But actually, most have so the point is moot. It doesn’t help me for those 0500 web meetings that are temporarily shifted to 0600 as most of Europe will shift in the next two week.  All it really achieves is making me cranky, which you had probably already guessed.

In more reasonable news –  the Swan is finished.

The Hellhound left foot prints in the Supernaturals SAL

and the JackRabbit is up next –

and using the magic of FaceTime – Jill walked me through skinning some cross stitch patterns with PCStitch. Now, if I could just convince that particular laptop that staying connected to the internet was the way to go…

 

The ordinary things

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

Remember when you were young and foolish? When you looked at the infirmities of older people without the least bit of recognition that, if you were fortunate/unfortunate depending on your point of view, you were going to be that persons in not all that many decades?

This though penetrated my brain this morning while sitting in one of those ergonomic office chair that must have been built for someone not of my size and build. There is nothing I can do about the depth of the seat nor its angle. So there I sit, with my legs wrapped around each other turning me into a pretzel. And, it makes my feet and ankles swell. Which is why I had the thought about what I used to view as old women and their legs a solid post between foot and knee. aWell, I might just be approaching that. And where did I put the support stockings…..

I am spending today at Dani & Alex’s while she is at work. Alex is doing ok, but no way can he round up the dogs while on crutches. My alternate job is coffee procurer. It is but a simple thing to stop as I exit the freeway at San Pablo Dam Road and grab a couple of lattes. Their kettle and his drip system are buried somewhere in one of the boxes and no one should have to face the day without an adequate dose of caffeine.

I have managed a small amount of stitching and a large amount of letting dogs out, bringing dogs in, letting dogs out, bringing dogs in…. they can’t escape the yard – it is well fenced. But there is a gopher hole which was discovered the other day…. If that gopher is smart, he has moved. Then there are the cats who live next door. They have figured out they are safe on their side of the fence but that doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting sitting there watching dogs go nuts….

or thinking that Alex’s lunch should be theirs..

 

Happy 2sDay

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

It seems like people get excited about silly things – in this case a date that is 2/22/22 or 22.2.22 depending on your particular country’s date format. There are claims that it is a “Once in a lifetime occurrence.”  Well, duh. Every date is a once in a lifetime occurrence. Obviously, at least in the US – it is being used as an excuse for yet another sale.

I don’t get it – the date is 2/22/2022. That is not all “2s”  The same way I don’t remember equal amounts of silliness about 1/1/11. But then, thinking about it – I was at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan about that time and had more important concerns on my plate than stars aligning in whatever quarter or a confluence of interesting numbers in the date.

In better fun –

I was able to make a bit of progress on the LongDog – and hit 51% completion (I am not dancing around – there are still about 19K worth of stitches to complete). Note, I stitched the second 2 of 2022 – so now I have to finish this year

But I did manage to complete the second Dino on the CloudsFactory SAL

Specifically the 11xx stitches of the K Dino.

No game

Holly Doyne Posted on by

“Having game” is an English language expression which I don’t remember from childhood. Maybe it is American? Probably not polite enough to be of Canadian origin. And not quite stuffy enough to be of English origin.

According to the Urban Dictionary – it relates guys being good at getting girls (my comment – complete with bullshit).

The Free Dictionary usually does a better job at idioms. In this case there are two offerings:

  1. slang To be good or adept (at something).
  2. in. to have skill; to have spirit or willingness to get involved in the action.

 

Both of which make a lot more sense to me. But neither explains the confusion when you attempt to use the negative. As is, I have no game [to go to]. Which was interpreted various ways – mostly having to do with something not operating on my computer.

What it really meant was that the Cal Women’s Basketball game was cancelled. It would have been nice to know this prior to 1800….

“Oh,” he said, “I received an email about that earlier in the week.”

“Might have been nice to share that information earlier” was my reply.

He might not always have game?

But the kids? Miriam now has a driver’s license with a pass on her first road test. Dani has the wallpaper up and that floor sealed.

Me? I should be able to finish Cryptid tomorrow as I have stitched the last critter and just have a few more stitches to complete the frame.

One year later

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

I am hoping, without actual hope, that 6 January doesn’t become another negative turning point in US history like 11 September.

What I can say is that there are still those who don’t believe we had a fair election in fall of 2020. There are those who like keeping the electoral college since it gives more weight to smaller states with fewer citizens. That there are those who just don’t like the idea that the face of the US is changing. 

And really, the land that is now US/Canada didn’t start out white. Both gained huge amounts of population from immigration. That immigration wave from Europe has long since passed (and at least in the US, Eastern Europe was also considered lesser – so that not all whites are considered equal either). Later waves of immigration come from those countries and areas of the world where the pain of moving and resettling brings more chance of a better life, economic growth, or personal safety than staying home.

Think about it – why would anyone emigrate from Scandinavia or Luxembourg? What would an individual gain? Less of a social support network? Equally high expenses and perhaps lesser pay? No guarantee of health care? Now – what if you are from Central America, what do you gain? The chance to maybe get an education, feed your family, sleep at night with less fear of guerrilla fighters coming in the middle of the night.

I may not be popular with the following: I don’t care how your ancestors arrived in the US, it is what you do with your own life. Yes, being female puts you at a disadvantage, or being “not white” puts you at a disadvantage. But, as one of the nurses with whom I work regularly said – I came here from Africa at the age of 23 unable to read or write. I worked hard, I went to night school, I learned, I went after grants, I now have a good job. Not every one is going to succeed, be they white, purple, or green. But we can all do our part to be welcoming and to give everyone a chance

Felicitations and solicitations

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

This is part observation, part rant. The third part is actually sadness at the waste of resources.

First, the observation – over the last two weeks, our mailbox has had numerous Christmas Cards with the occasional holiday card tossed in from the various organizations to which we have donated in the past year. All the email ones are similar (and also include any merchant whose website I might have visited in this or the last century).

There is a pattern. First you are thanked for your support, the ongoing pain and need of whatever is their particular mission is second, and the third is a request for more money. Sometimes it is polite, sometimes that card envelope also includes a pledge form and a return envelope. Occasionally those two parts arrive separately so as to not taint the holiday greeting.

It is much easier to deal with the emailed requests – I can read or delete. Minimal resources are used. What is more, I can usually tell by which email account the request arrives in, exactly where they obtained my email. Few trees were wasted in the process, postal carriers were not overwhelmed by thousands of cards, and my paper bin is not filled to over flowing.

Asking them to not mail/email me with a side order of “if you persist in this behavior, I will stop donating” doesn’t work. I have done that; they haven’t taken me off the list. Instead I get the “please come back.”

Now, I will just leave you with the thought of how much time, money, and resources are wasted on those mailed cards and requests. Money that is not going into whatever fund to which you had donated. People resources that could be devoted to their actual mission. There are some organizations which are worse than others – with their multiple requests for money over the year. Those, if I am the one picking up the mail, go straight into the paper recycle and never enter the house.  How many tons of paper are wasted? The cards don’t even make good floss drops!

I would really like to see this particular holiday season be left to those for whom it has meaning and not be yet another opportunity for exploitation. May you have a quiet day, connecting with family and friends.

 

The phone are

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

There are either too many options, or not enough I was thinking as we discovered logistical chain impacts on cell phones as well.

Perhaps (or not) you are old enough to remember the single household phone on the kitchen wall? The one that had a specific ring combination for your household? The one that, if you lived in a rural area, was probably just one of a dozen on a party line. Then there were the bakelite desk phones with their rotary dials. Heavy things that featured prominently in several mysteries as the murder weapon. The kind that also featured in spy novels with a bug planted in the handset.  Then there was the marvelous addition of colors of that desk phone as an alternative to the basic black.

From there the innovations which seemed really impressive at the time advanced to the princess phone (smaller footprint – ouch, just saw the pun in that) with pastel colors. Then we advanced to the cordless handset which might have resulted in fewer accidents but definitely contributed to frequent games of “hunt the phone.” Buttons to push rather than a dial, wow, those improvements kept coming.

We were in Stuttgart from 1981-1984 and moved back to the US to discover the breakup of Ma Bell, the spawning of offspring and the fact that you no longer got your phone from the phone company. Huh? was my response. We had been in Germany with a heavy duty phone complete with a unit recorder so you would know how fast you were racking up charges on your phone. Go buy my own phone? Why?

Ok. Deal.

The next major impetus in phone technology was fostered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the complete lack of infrastructure in the Former East. Average of three-four phones/town (police, hospital, bar/inn) and a waiting time of years to get in lines and get a phone. The Finnish company Nokia and the US Motorola stepped into the gap. By 1995 even the US military had “mobile” phones even though they were usually referred to as bricks – same as any hand held radio and weighted just about as much. Basis of allocation was one per commander under the European Army Med Command. Since I normally sent my out with whatever ambulance was doing long haul transport (Würzburg -> Landstuhl 3-4 hours) of patients, I rarely saw it. The cracker box radios didn’t reach all that far which isolated crew and patients for an unacceptable length of time. As you might expect, I just ignored the complaints that I wasn’t reachable at someone else’s convenience.

I will skip the intervening years – you lived through them – and  jump a bit more than 25 years to today. Alex’s phone just might have been dropped a few too many times and no longer charges. It has been deemed non-repairable, as it is an iPhone 8. Noah has been on the same phone for about 5 years now and it can’t be updated nor does it hold a charge for more than a couple of hours.

The first phone was easy – the Apple store has lots and lots of options in stock. We found him a reasonable replacement. Yes, I could have saved a few $$ by ordering through AT&T, but I have no desire to extend my contract with them for another 36 months.  Noah’s phone proved to be more challenging. Due to the PC/Linux based engineering software (plus gaming, let us be real here) he wanted to opt into a phone that was integrated into his chosen computer system. Due to chip shortage, his desired phone with a decent amount of memory varied in cost over $500. Purchasing now cost a lot more than being willing to wait 2-3 weeks. He, most intelligently, decided to wait and ordered it for end of year delivery.

It was a day otherwise where I didn’t accomplish much. Maybe 300 stitches into the final release of Tiny Modernist’s Fairy Tale series and two lengths of thread into Mandalorian. I am not bothering with pictures, you wouldn’t notice a difference. I decided that reading was a better use of my time…

Black Friday – Star Legend

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

This commentary is brought to you by the miracle of too much coffee… Anyway. For those of you who are not US the following may be interesting. Everyone else, feel free to skip down several paragraphs.

The background of Black Friday stems from the US retail industry which, on the Friday after US Thanksgiving  finally saw enough customers and sales to transition their year from being in the red (loss) to being in the black (making a profit). The trend was helped by the fact that most other US businesses give their employees that Friday off work. Traditionally as well, it was also the first day of the Xmas holiday season. New decorations, people shopping for presents on a day off etc. Over the years the “Black Friday” has evolved into competing sales and attempts to lure in people with their money. No longer restricted to retail stores, the practice with the accompanying sales has extended into the on-line sales community.

As it turns out, the phenomenon has also snuck out of the US and into Europe. I can’t speak to other areas of the world. I find it extremely disturbing to find “Black Sales” and “Black Friday Sales” signs in the windows of shops in Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. None of the shop personnel had a clue as to what it meant, just that it had become a “thing” in recent years.

My email has been bombarded with sales and offers. It might be a chance for a merchant to clear out stock that hasn’t moved, but really – that discount might just leave them in Red November.

On to other things – we docked just after lunch in Funchal, Madeira. Unlike the last time we were here, the sun was shining. So much so that I completely ignored the fact that the clouds floating by had rather dark underbellies. I didn’t bother with jacket or take an umbrella. Just walking into the town to see if I could find another notions store (no, none were tourists could easily get to) and to find some magnets. No, I don’t need any, but it turns out that crew members on this ship collect them. My favorite barista hasn’t managed to get off ship in the last couple of ports. It was easy enough to snag some in one of the souvenir shops.

And, I didn’t get too wet considering that the light sprinkles started just after I left the port.

and a view of the Star Legend from the city.

otherwise, it was stitching this morning and I am now contemplating a nap before supper…

Twenty years on

Holly Doyne Posted on by 2

since life as most of us in the US (and particularly those of us who were active duty at the time) literally saw our world crash and burn. As a country, somehow we were shocked to be attacked on our home ground. An experience that all too many in the rest of the world had been living with for centuries. Whether those attacks were carried out by pitchfork wielding neighbors, rival tribes, arrogant colony seeking countries, or major military battles. Why the US, with its long standing behavior (which I really think is one of those less pleasant attitudes passed down from the Brits) of assuming it knew best for other countries and governments, thought it was exempt is beyond me.

But now, we are twenty years on. I had friends among those who died at the Pentagon. Others that I know lost family and friends when the Twin Towers were attacked. And a planeload of passengers chose to sacrifice their lives in a Pennsylvania field rather than allow the plane they were on to be used as the fourth bomb. And this doesn’t count the tally of those who risked and lost their lives in NYC to save others; nor does it include all of those living with the aftermath of stress and disease as a result of exposures on that day.

And where are we as a country? Why are we surprised when there is a definite portion of the US (and that portion traditionally contributes significantly in terms of military service, police, and fire fighters) who don’t trust the US government or its leaders. Who want a simple answer. And are absolutely tired of doing anything that even remotely could be considered a sacrifice for the benefit of others.

Many of these individuals feel that they have been at war for 20 years, that (in their religious mind set) that the current pandemic might just be a punishment sent by their deity, and that they are losing their last vestiges of freedom and choice.

I don’t agree. I find the arguments completely spurious. Twenty years on, I want to remember those who died by making sure that there is a world to pass down to the next generation. That those who sacrificed are remembered daily, and that I am willing to make those sacrifices needed to keep others safe. My personal choices affect others. It is the small things. Traffic lights, seat belts, masks, immunizations, standing in a queue. Those small considerations for others that may just mean that there will be forty years on. And not a failure of democracy in the US, a country where it has become too easy for people to put their own desires ahead of the welfare of all of us.

And, just in case – go watch Exhibit 13

introduction of teenagers

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

in further commentary on Tom Standage’s The History of Motion comes the addition of concepts and terminology that has entered into the English Language (and by extension those of other countries) by the introduction of an automobile based society.

I mention this because certain cultural norms and attitudes are formed by the technology that is standard during one’s adolescent development. Take, for example, my parents generation. The three key influences for those born in the 1920s were 1) the Great Depression 2) WWII & 3) the automobile. The first was economic, affecting some more than others and the rare few not at all. The Second World War changed lives, increased technology, and created (and took away) a vast varieties of opportunities. But the car? They grew up in a society that saw cars and ownership as the norm, They experienced life oriented around personal rather than public transportation. Again – I am primarily referring to the US and by extension Canada and Australia as countries that didn’t have the inherent limitations of centuries of land ownership and embedded systems of transportation. Cars were effectively the new covered wagons.

The closest I can come for comparison is the effect computers had on my oldest daughter’s generation or the cell phone on those of my youngest children (having both Gen X and Gen Y/Millennial’s offspring).

But back to the car – according to Tom Standage, the availability of cars (including the old, used, beaters) allowed teens to escape parental scrutiny and permanently changed the dating and school culture of the US. (this might be a bit slanted toward the white, non-city population, but there you have it).

It certainly was true in the rural area where I went to high school. Accessibility of a car meant everything. It meant independence of movement. It meant the ability to have a job separate from the family. And, for the teen age boys with older brothers (which was the norm in my area) it meant access to beer, the truck and hanging out at the local quarry to drink…

Our society reformed around the automobile.

I hadn’t realized how true this was until we returned from Europe for the last time. The SF Bay Area does have an excellent public transportation network, for a US metro area. But it pales in comparison to Europe. But then, unlike many families, we have maintained one car rather than two for many years (exempting those years where we were physically running two households in separate countries. It is really had to share a car between England and Germany). We certainly haven’t needed more than one since we moved to Berkeley. Until the pandemic, frankly we were a prime example of folks who could have done just fine without a personal vehicle.

And since? Other than medical appointments which Amazon has not yet managed to package and deliver – just about everything we need can be dropped at the door.

Hummmm

Who was Mr Toad?

Holly Doyne Posted on by

This is not a non sequitur. Rather, it is a speculation on whom Kenneth Grahame based his character of Mr. Toad.*

As a child, Wind in the Willows was a wonderful story. Perfectly acceptable that animals could be anthropomorphized, no five year old would ever question the origin of the characters. Rather, a child with an active imagination would just make up their own stories of local animals and look along creeks and streams for indications that there were similar characters in one’s own home area.

But ideas come from somewhere. I am not a believer in a cosmic pool of ideas that randomly and, for some special people frequently, strike them in the head with a demand to be set down or transmitted in some verbal format to others. It may not always be a conscious process, but it does take place in that wonderful and murky subconscious.

Where is all this going?

I am listening to another one of Tom Standage’s wonderful books. A Brief History of Motion tells literally the story (subtitle here) from the wheel, to the car, to what comes next. About a third of the way through the book, the connection to story snapped into focus. Yes the invention of the wheel for travel was interesting as well as the development of cars. I hadn’t really through about the development of railways increasing the use of horse drawn conveyances inside cities as people and goods moved more freely between cities. And, when you think about it, the problem of horse manure is obvious.

Most of us would not have framed the drive toward internal combustion engines as a response to solving transportation while reducing the impact of horses on cities. Seriously? But then most fiction doesn’t really describe the filth and smell of the average city street of the Victorian Era now does it?

The story of the early development of the motor car is fascinating and many of the names are familiar to all of us (Daimler, Benz, Maybeck, Peugeot). All of which leads to the stories of the first competitive races sponsored by various news papers for incredible distances of 75 miles. Or a round trip of 350 miles, completed in a bit over 48 hours. (If you need a reference, horses changed out regularly can average 10 miles an hour pulling a coach, a person is doing well to hike 4 miles/hr which is not sustainable over the long haul.

Anyway, as you can imagine, early cars were expensive to buy, maintain, and run which lead to the same issues as with all former wheeled inventions. Because you can own it, you can drive it wherever you want/can manage regardless of other vehicles, animals or pedestrians. (note, this particular problem has not disappeared, it has spread as there are now inconsiderate, idiot drivers world-wide).  But, Standage speculates – one each Wm Vanderbilt II may have been the inspiration. I mean really, crashing that many cars, paying an inordinate number of fines, and ducking prison sentences? You really can’t make this stuff up.

I highly recommend the book as both educational and entertaining.

* If you want to read more, go to the Wiki article here which gives background, listing of editions, productions, and potential inspirations. Also of note – A. A. Milne wrote the first  screenplay version of Toad of Toad Hall (and about the same time he started on the Pooh poems and stories).

Out of the past

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

A long time ago (ok, more than 40 years ago), George & I lived in St Paul (MN). I had a small family practice mostly focused on OB and well babies. George was working for Legal Aid. I mentioning this background because connections extend over time, distance, and space. (no, not at Star Trek reference).

I have several lovely Lebküchen tins from our time in Germany. Three of them have been sitting on top of the dining room built in cupboards for several years as indicated by the definite coating of dust. There are family photos inside. Shana has been asking about her baby book; it is somewhere and I will find it. Figuring one way to quell my guilt would be to offer a selection of photos from her infancy and childhood.

Among them, I found pictures from a birthday party she attended when not quite a year old. I looked at the photos, twins. I remembered them, their older brother, and their parents quite clearly. On a whim, I decided to see if I could locate either of the twins. The boy of the two had a fairly unique first name and I located him on a simple search. As a faculty member, his university kindly provided a contact email.

So off went an email. Several days passed; I received a reply. No, he obviously didn’t remember (I don’t know anyone who remembers their first birthday party). but his parents immediately knew who I was. In fact, he was at their house, as were his siblings, and everyone’s spouses and offspring. I emailed off a set of the pictures. They were much appreciated, I was assured.

And I am thinking that sometimes it is alright to be reminded of the times when our hair wasn’t grey (or that we had hair…)

waiting patiently

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Is all that any of us can – or should – do.

The US is still a democracy – it is time to let the process run its course.

That means obeying all the laws, all the court order, and letting people do their jobs.

The post office is required by law to deliver ballots to be counted. This is not an choice on the part of left leaning, right leaning, or bored/tired/ill personnel. Legally, letters, once they getting a box must get picked up, sorted, delivered. There are standards, time limits. Managers are normally held accountable. This week should be no different.

Those ballots are equally important, and probably even more so, in local, regional, and state elections. Neither of the main parties should be able to interfere with the Post Office – perhaps all the ballots could be for third party candidates? Or my daughter’s cat? None of that matters.

Counting in each state is determined by that state’s laws and overseen by the election officials. I don’t gs inet an opinion. I don’t get to chose if my or my neighbor’s ballot is accepted – except by whether or not an individual ballot meets my particular state’s requirements.

Unlike when I have voted in past elections (Florida if anyone cares between the early 1980-2016), my vote gets counted. Florida, in the past, sometimes counted absentee ballots and sometimes didn’t. Let me explain: if you were voting by absentee and were out of country, you could vote at the state level, but not in local elections. As a result, the mail-in ballots were held till the physical count was in. If the number of absentee ballots (usually 32K give or take) was greater than the difference between the candidates, those ballots were counted. If not, why bother since those votes were not going to change the election. Or so the thinking went.

Now, with the number of mail in ballots exceeding in person voting – obviously all the ballots need to be counted. And each state has it’s own laws. There are those states which count as received (results are not released until the polls close). There are those who don’t count until after the polls close. There are states that go by the post mark date. Others by the received date. It is not uniform. It doesn’t matter if you, I, or someone who lives in DC likes it, agrees with it, or throws a temper tantrum. It is time to respect the law. The political parties don’t decide, the news outlets don’t decide, and most certainly the candidates themselves don’t decide. We, as voters, decide and that decision doesn’t occur until all our votes are counted.

Perhaps the time is now right to have a national standard. We are no longer in the 1700s when it could take weeks for ballots to arrive. At the same time, we have grown as a country and grown up. You don’t have to be a white male landowner to be entitled to vote. You didn’t use to have to prove citizenship if you were one of those white males. (In many places you still don’t as long as you “sound right.”)

So what we all need to do is sit back, relax, take a swallow of our favorite beverage, be it coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, or something with a significant kick and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are adults and can execute calmly, safely, and objectively the election process. The process that we have been standing first in line and pointing fingers in other countries when we don’t think that they have been fair.

Perhaps cleaning up our own house is in order.

 

Vote

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

If you are not a US voter – skip the next little bit. And, for your information – the US, unlike several countries, does not have mandatory voting.

Vote. Exercise your rights. Retain your ability to honestly be able to complain about the results, the laws, the politicians, the results. If you don’t play, you are still going to pay. It doesn’t matter if you vote by mail, by dropping off your ballot, by going into a poling location early, by showing up today. Vote. Be part of the solution. It does make a difference. Not voting negates the blood, sweat, and tears of women and men for decades who have fought for the right to have their voices heard, their votes counted.

There are too many people in the US who seem to feel that the presidential election is the only thing that matters. Not so – in reality, your state, county and local officials will have a major impact on your lives. They control local public services, oversee the police and fire departments, regulate the schools. All of those issues along with a myriad of others impact you, taxes, and your wallet.

California, this year, joined several other states in providing physical drop off/mail in ballots to all registered voters, Everyone in this household received their ballot, filled it out, All ballots were dropped off prior to today. Alameda County, California has a population of 1.7 million people, There are 66 drop off points (plus the Oakland Coliseum which was set up for massive in person voting as well as a drop off site). Harris County, Texas, population 4 Million + apparently believes that one (1) drop off location is enough. Hello?

Misinformation has been higher this year than any other. As one of those military members who voted by absentee ballot for decades, I thoroughly resent the implication of wide spread voter fraud. Stationed in Germany in the early 1980s along with 300,000+ other service members + families, it was just assumed that it was our right to vote. That our home states respected our right to vote. That our votes could be mailed in, that they would be counted. As the traditionally largest population of out of country voters, the states of Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Washington, Tennessee, Florida, California where the largest military bases were located welcomed our votes.

What is different now? One of my former lieutenants, who voted by absentee for years faced the challenge of being questioned when he retired and returned home. It took his birth certificate, his passport, his military ID to be allowed to register. Why? His skin is not white, he speaks with an accent. Apparently NY state doesn’t recognize Louisiana/Cajun as part of the US.

So, for those of you who are US – vote. Make your voice heard. No matter who you support remember that dignity and respect are the basis off all major faiths. Let us be civilized, not savages. We don’t eat our young, we don’t abandon our elderly.

And for the non-US reading this, thank you. Educate yourself on your own countries issues and exercise your voice when the next opportunity arrises.

Herd Immunity

Holly Doyne Posted on by 3

This is a rant – delete at will.

Before I even go down the trail of why this new plan of the US White House is immoral, obscene, and not even remotely ethical – let us talk about herds.

Herds are groups of bovine or related species.  There is absolutely no question in the herd that all are not equal, not all members have equal chance at survival, that there is limited ability to protect the most vulnerable members of the herd. It is Darwin at the finest. The weakest members can and are left behind. They are brought down by predators while the rest of the herd escapes. A balance of nature – so to speak. If a member of a wild herd gets a serious infection – it dies. A newly born member of the herd, if physically “defective” dies. The elderly members, especially those past reproductive age, who can’t keep up with the herd – die.

As humans – we like to pretend that we are not herd animals. We care for our young, long past the point in most societies where children born with defects are left outside for the elements. We have antibiotics and treat all those infections that we can. We don’t routinely discard members of society who are past childbearing age so that there is enough food for those who are perpetuating the species (not going down this rabbit hole at the present – as there are way too may locations in the world where grandparents are raising their grandchildren). We pride ourselves on care and respect for our elderly, elders, and aged.

Or, I thought we did. That we were not a herd.

So why would we pretend that it is perfectly all right for us to say that “let the disease spread while those who are vulnerable are protected”?

Is this idea finding root now because one person has survived his episode of COVID-19 with a level of medical support that is not available to the vast majority of the US -especially those of us who live in areas where the hospital infrastructure is old, crumbling, inadequate, and lacks even remotely current ventilation standards?

Is it because the vast majority of deaths thus far have been in aged care facilities, nursing homes, residential homes, poor neighborhoods, essential workers of color? Do those in certain places assume that their whiteness, their economic status, their privilege will protect them? Their families.

Is it because it is easy to assume that SARS-COV2 is a one and done? How easy is it to ignore the reality of long-haul COVID and the thousands upon thousands who will be living with the consequences for years.

Does someone, somewhere think that we can identify who is vulnerable? That we have enough trained personnel to staff our hospitals and care facilities to take care of that 60% of the population getting infected that it will take?

Are we willing to accept that – with our current best medical care available to all – that the death rate is about 4%? That, my friends, translates to 12 MILLION people dying in the US. Our current US death count is just past 220,000.  Look around you – that means that 1/25 of those you know would be sacrificed to herd immunity. Does your family – including partners, parents, off-spring, siblings – number 25?  Who are you willing to let die for the cause? How about your friends, colleagues? How about you? Are you willing to die to promote herd immunity?

This disease is real. It is deadly.   All those scientist who signed the Barrington? All I can think of is that they don’t view themselves at risk. That they are sure they can protect themselves. I can play with numbers. But as a physician – those numbers have human faces; dreams, families, futures. Do I, sitting behind a computer and playing with numbers have a right to say – you get to die so that others can have a “normal” life?

The long term consequences of this disease are ugly in human life, in disability, in economic cost. No one who survives an intensive care unit stay ever returns to full normalcy. The idea that political leaders could advocate sacrificing a portion of the US population to death so that they don’t have to wear a mask is ludicrous.

Excuse me – but I think we have been here before in history. When a particular movement decided that cleaning house would be advantageous to themselves, their beliefs, and their economy. The result?

We call it the Holocaust.

And now? Will we go down the same path using a disease rather than ovens?

Think about it.

 

 

 

 

11 September

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

There are 19 years separating us from those horrible events. There are voters now who were no t even alive when those planes came down: into the Twin Towers in New York; into the Pentagon; into a field in Pennsylvania.

I do not need to reiterate the stunned, shocked, non-understanding of how this could have happened. Over the next days and weeks, as the toll of the dead mounted and names were attached to those lost, pieces of the puzzle were put together.

But it didn’t change anything for those lost, for the families and friends who were forever changed. It did change everything for all of us. How we viewed each other, how we traveled, how suspicion of anyone from the Mid-East skyrocketed. This change, unfortunately has become permanent. Imbedded so deeply that it is hard to remember how things use to be.

I had colleagues killed at the Pentagon. Individuals with whom I had served just a few short months prior. Sitting at meetings, sharing a coffee. It is now hard to pull faces out of my memory, harder still to think of all the changes that have cascaded through their families in the intervening years.

All I can say today is please, hug those close to you. Make a few phone/skype/zoom/internet calls. Tell them that they are loved, appreciated, though of no matter where they are or their current job.

Sometimes, you just don’t get a chance to say goodbye.

It wasn’t meant to be funny

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

One way that I have kept myself entertained over the last several months is by listening to various of the Great Courses (produced by the euphemistically named “Learning Company”). Between the two public libraries to which I subscribe (Berkeley and San Francisco) and the extension provided by the SF Library to Hoopla, there are dozens of these to which I can listen.

As a result, I have been learning about the Middle Ages, various assorted sciences and a bit of music. Just for a lark, I pulled their course on “Introduction to Infectious Disease.” It was produced sometime after the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Unfortunately, the author describes the US public health system as organized, well prepared, well recognized, and “able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.”

I had to stop listening, it just hurt too much. Yes, Dr Fox is accurate in that we recognized that diseases can spread rapidly. But stating that we were prepared for the current pandemic is completely ludicrous. Decades of under funding coupled with a complete disregard for safety, security, and human rights whenever anything got in the way of someone making a fast buck left the US woefully unprepared.

His intro was meant to encourage and laud the progress that had been made in the wake of Ebola. Instead, it just made me feel bad and not be able to listen to the rest of it.  After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I emailed the production company to suggest that they re-do the intro. Most of their material is on-line and it just isn’t that hard to update digital files.

In family news: in spite of traffic this morning, we managed to get to UCSF in plenty of time for George’s radiology appointment. Assuming we won’t get results till Thursday when he has a follow up. Otherwise, there is organizing, stitching, baseball – with a side benefit of Angel deciding to BBQ tonight resulting in a lovely supper on the back deck.

Mother’s Day

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

Being a mother has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with attitude, love, and care for others. At sometimes it means a bit of self-sacrifice and other times teaching that self-reliance is important. Imparting the ability to cope with the simple (and sometimes complex) activities of daily life; to be able to have your loved one venture out in the world and be able to stand, stump, or roll on their own.

It is teaching the important difference between unconditional love and setting limits on unacceptable behavior: I love you, but I do NOT like what your are doing – to put it in the simplest terms.

I am planning a quiet day. George and Miriam headed to the farmer’s market. With any luck, there might be early cherries. but I am not holding my breath as 1) it has been cooler along the coast than usual & 2) you need people to pick cherries. With the shutdown, there just aren’t the seasonal agricultural workers… So I might just have to eat scones without cherries. Angel is at work. Shana is bringing dinner at 1730 after she finishes some work. The dogs downstairs are still quiet. The cat has given up on begging me for food. So I am quietly sitting comfortably near the fireplace with my cup of mint tea (coffee? Already had more than a full dose of caffeine this morning) with some knitting and cross stitch.

So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms today in my time zone (and hoping yesterday was great for those of you in OZ).

Train Wreck in slow motion

Holly Doyne Posted on by 1

Watching the daily numbers as COVID-19 spreads around the globe is like being on the sidelines as two huge bodies head for the inevitable crash. You know it is going to happen; being an ostrich and talking about “relaxing things next week so that we don’t damage the economy further” is just total and complete idiocy.

I do have friends/family who are relatively safe. They live in rural Canada, rural Minnesota, remote Alaska. Used to functioning for weeks at a time during the winter, their chances of riding this pandemic out are fairly good. The rest of us? Especially the city dwellers? Not so good.

Especially those of us who have younger family and friends not taking restrictions seriously, use guilt if you need to. Use whatever lever required to have them act responsibly. Stupid behavior, ignoring social distancing, having loud parties and hanging out in crowds doesn’t just risk them, it risks the rest of us. The rest of us who are likely to put a burden on the medical system and decrease the availability of care for others.

Face it, the developed world has done an excellent job over the last 40 years of overall decrease of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Not perfectly, but with enough of an increase that we have a significant population of under 21s who have serious medical and physical challenges. We have done fairly good job with diabetes since the addition of insulin to treatment (around 1926) such that we have thousands upon thousands now alive with increased susceptibility to both infection and a nasty tendency to have their disease spiral out of control with any illness. There are all of us who are cancer survivors. Then add in everyone who is on various immune suppressive therapies for arthritis, connective tissue disease, auto-immune disorders.

In the developing world, there are just as many challenges, but of a different sort. Intercurrent diseases, like malaria and other parasites as well as malnutrition, We have seen huge demographic changes in most sub-Saharan African countries where HIV took out huge swaths of adults, leaving children to be raised by grandparents. Those elders who have survived to this point are now at risk in countries where 45+% of the population is aged 16 and below. Take a look at this site where you can see age distributions in the population.

Compare Western Africa to Western Europe. As an aside, looking at this also may provide some understanding about the lack of teachers, health care providers, and other what we might consider essential personnel. There are simply too many young people and not enough people & resources to train their replacements, much less the ability to expand the ranks.

And for another look at reality – as everyone panicked in mid-March at the thought of 18k deaths world wide – the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) alone had 6000 deaths from measles in 2019 – almost all young children and over 480,000 deaths from malaria.

Are we reacting as NIMBY?

Or have the US numbers of over 42,000 deaths finally struck home? The world is not the same as it was last fall. The developed world, for all its conveniences, medical access, clean water, and abundant power – is facing the grief, loss, and out of control that characterizes much of the developing world on a daily basis.

What each of us does, affects everyone else as well as having long ranging effect on society, the environment and potentially, all of our survival.

For those in the US

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

If you are not in the US – you might not be aware of the US Census which was supposed to be conducted starting 1 April. In past years, this has involved a huge hiring effort and a massive door-to-door inventory of “everyone in the country.” As for why the census? Not only is it mandated by the US Constitution, but the census forms the basis for allocation of a huge number of things – from Congress representation to funding of various programs.

Starting last year, there wound up being a massive mess in the courts because certain people in the US Administration wanted to add a “are you a citizen” question to the census. Now, there is nothing in the constitution that requires someone to be a citizen to be counted. In fact, the ugly truth is that the compromise at the time it was written was that slaves would count as 3/5 of a person. And those numbers would be included in determining the Congressional Representation. Note also that there was no gender definition. One can easily say then – if slaves counted, then citizenship didn’t matter since they also were counting all family members, even though women and children had absolutely no rights, say, etc.

So why would we need a citizenship question? Other than the fact that certain people do not understand what immigrants contribute to the country. And that they are looking for yet another way that the Immigration and Naturalization Service can track down and deport more individuals.

It is all stupid – California had a significant problem last year in obtaining enough workers to handle the harvest. Also true in other states. I don’t know many US raised children who are willing to do the backbreaking work that is required in farming or agriculture. (Colin,Jan, Rebecca, you are the exceptions).

But anyway – follow this link to a new version of Annie’s Song (John Denver)…