Tag: life in the time of corona

Coronavirus: Day 57

Woke up this morning to have to shoo a vulture out of the yard and clean up the remains of a half eaten squirrel carcass. Because that’s the kinda ominous start you want to the ninth week of social distancing…

Jasper has really gotten into the Beatles lately. He likes to sing along to a few of the songs: Help, Eight Days a Week, Ticket to Ride. I didn’t realize he knew Hard Days Night until Pixies “Here Comes Your May” started and Jasper perked up and said “Beatles?”

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Good ear, kiddo.

Jasper is also at the age where sticking things up his nose is funny. The other day it was during dinner and I hear a “Look daddy, boogies,” and I discovered a pea up his nose. Fun times. He’s lucky he’s cute.

Coronavirus: Day 56

It’s been eight weeks, folks…

Discovered JQBX and am loving it. Reminds me of Turntable.fm which was a fun site almost a decade ago.

Funny enough, Vice published an article YESTERDAY about Turntable with folks longing for it and a good history of it’s rise and fall. Seems it’s fall was a consequence of going legit:

Unlike many startups, the site also made a point of properly licensing its music, which required legal and engineering infrastructure that was expensive for a young company with a user base around the size of the population of New Orleans. Further, initial deals with U.S. record labels forced the site to remain stateside.

“The actual major hit was closing international traffic and needing to lock down to the U.S. after securing our label deals,” said Chasen. “We then spent the next couple years trying to get the deals needed to open internationally. It was a move that was ultimately costly both in time and money.”

Hey, remember nearly EIGHT WEEKS AGO back when this whole “I miss places” thing began and there were all of those folks writing articles and Twitter threads about how this time at home would be a great opportunity to learn a new language or write a book or discover a new hobby or one of those other millions of things folks with free time can do? Haven’t heard much out of them lately.

Funny enough, McSweeney’s posted and article YESTERDAY about wishing one could be more productive during this time they’ve spent cursed by a sea witch.

When I was initially transformed into a repulsive sea polyp by Ursula the Sea Witch, I admit to being more than a little shocked. One moment I was a carefree mer-person swimming and siren-singing; the next I was a hideous sea plant held captive in an undersea lair. Still, I knew I had to come to terms with my plight if I was going to survive. So instead of falling into despair and hopelessly waiting for her spell to break, I vowed to focus my energy on completing personal projects.

But now, eight weeks later, I am starting to feel guilty about not using my time spent cursed more productively.

Is it too much to ask for some consistency in the quality of tin foil for my hat?

So the same audiences pushing the theory that COVID originated in a Wuhan lab are now pushing a video with an anti-vax doc who says it’s caused by a bad flu vaccine.

Sure we’re getting some conflicting messages from the government, but c’mon, conspiracy theorists, be consistent!

It’s absurd that the same folks who “question the Deep State” don’t question the myriad of crazy theories that outright contradict each other in an effort to find whatever they can to support their hypothesis.

If you supposedly care about the TRUTH and accuracy so much that you’re not taking doctors and government at face value, apply the same metric to the dude running data they got via an anti-vax Facebook group through an Excel spreadsheet to share on their YouTube channel.

“Think about who the ‘you’ in this quote is…”

If you aren’t subscribed to Ross Catrow‘s Good Morning, RVA you really should be. It’s a great daily recap of significant RVA news and insights from a dude who’s paying attention.

Today’s issue captures a lot of my thoughts and head scratching as Northam tries to steer Virginia toward Phase 1 of reopening on May 15th:

 This is incredibly frustrating. What was the point of announcing all of those data-based guidelines if Northam just had his sights set on May 15th anyway? What happens if the data don’t cooperate and get in line for his new two-week deadline? Northam’s also switching his messaging to “safer at home” instead of “stay at home,” but, as always, safer at home for whom? Phase One sends employees at “restaurants, recreation, and personal care business such as hair salons and spas”—mostly working-class people—back to work. Folks who are privileged enough to have good insurance and can work from home are encouraged to continue doing so. Here’s a quote from the Governor, take a second and think about who the “you” in this quote is: “Here’s the bottom line…You’ll be able to get your hair cut, but you’ll need an appointment. It means you can go out to eat again, but restaurants will use less of their seating to spread people out. Phase One means more retail establishments can be open, but they’ll have to operate at lower capacity.”

“Think about who the ‘you’ in this quote is…”

These aren’t high paying jobs with great insurance benefits that are opening up.

There is also the issue of, sure, things are open, but where are the kids going to go?

Carberry can’t work because there’s no one to watch her 4-year-old son, Robbie. Robbie’s child care center is closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Carberry’s family lives far away. Carberry is a single mother with less than a dollar in the bank.

“I get the emails to see if I’m available. I told them, if I had child care, I’d be there,” Carberry told HuffPost. Before COVID-19, in a pinch, Carberry could find someone in the neighborhood to watch Robbie. Now, with social distancing, that’s just not possible. “It’s not like I can reach out to the church and find some ladies to fill in,” she said. “Nobody wants to get their family infected.”

In Virginia, daycare facilities remain open, but are bound by the state’s social distancing guidelines and restrictions on groups larger than 10 people. Classrooms that used to hold 30 children can now only hold 8 and two caregivers. Facilities that used to have 140 children are now at 40 and hard pressed to open to more due to spacing restrictions.

This is going to hurt people who are being told to come back to work but simply can’t due to lack of childcare – potentially impacting unemployment benefits.

The solution isn’t to just throw open the doors of schools and daycares (see reaction to Dr. Oz for more on that…) but policy wonks are going to have to figure out how to structure these Phases in a way that doesn’t leave families with children on the outside looking in.