Music: The Facebook "Name Your Top Ten Albums" game

A common 'game' on facebook is to post a challenge to your friends to name their top ten items in some list, e.g. top ten movies of 1989.  I was recently thrown such a challenge, and I decided to blog on my favorite record albums all at once, on Archie's Archives.  So pop over there if you're bored enough!!

How the Virus is Progressing

Before I forget, I must share this link, which provides up-to-date information about the rate at which the virus is spreading in each state.  Bear in mind though, that very likely those who travel across state lines are infectious.  This is just my prejudice, but I bet it is true.

The mention of r_t  needs some clarification. (I'm going to call it r(t), not to have to write extra html.)  This means an estimate from the graph data, of how many additional people seem to have been infected per person already infected, on any date.  (A sort of a relative derivative, if you know calculus.)  If each person who is already infectious infects just one other person, r(t) would be 1.

Our state, Pennsylvania, appears to be about at the median of all states.  I'm pleased, because so many of our fellow-citizens seem to be at a total loss as to what to do, all my themselves, at home.

But, do you notice that in some states, the infection rate  [I mean r(t)]  seems to have gone down, and then started rising again?  I offer no explanation for that, but if the rate goes up sharply as soon as the lock-down is relaxed, we will have no alternative except to assume that the extra freedom that people feel to go about and earn money for their workplaces is resulting in more infection.

What can we do to help all our friends who are terminally bored at home?

There are some families which have to deal with big muscular guys, who need to get on their pickups, and go somewhere where they're drinking beer.  There are other families which have to deal with young ladies who absolutely need to put on their dancing shoes, and go booze with their friends, or get their hair done, or get coffee.

There are some families with little people who get easily bored, and really need to have supervised activities.  If you've been doing this, you might be at your wit's end, as to what new things to get them started on.  (At one time, I had a dozen little things that kids of 8 and older could do, but I have forgotten them!!  What an unforgivable crime!  Actually, I do have an interesting activity, but it will take a lot of photographs to describe and explain how it goes, and it's more than I have motivation for!  I'll try to get a little help, and put up a page somewhere.)

Recently, a friend of my wife's told her that there are a ton of old ladies who lived in the general area of where this friend was from, many of whom lived in community living--sort of nursing homes--who can no longer get to their library, to find books to read.

My wife said that we have a ton of books at home, which we will probably never read, and would she like to have some of them?

So the other day, my wife insisted that I should comb through my enormous collection of books I haven't read for decades, and give her the least-read ones.

Well, we went through her books and mine, and turned up about 30 books, and sent them off.  We have no idea how the little old ladies will like the books, but I suppose we will get some feedback in a week or two.

I guess the point I'm working my way toward, is that your neighbors might appreciate some of your books that you might never read again.  For instance, I have a few of the Anne of Green Gables books which would probably not interest little old ladies (but you can never tell).  Detective stories might interest people.  It all depends on the books you have; people who never read books before might pick one up in desperation, and read it through to the end!!

Creative Craziness from My Wife's Tribe

I have the fortune to be married to a woman whose family is consists of quite Think Outside The Box sort of people.  Her sister came up with the idea that she would start a story, and then mail it out to her siblings and her children to complete, a paragraph, or a chapter, or a sentence at a time, and mail it to the next person!

I'm dying to get my hands on this story, but it is likely to get a little too political, or a little too musical, or a little too mathematical if I have my dreadful way with it!  It is a sort of fairy story, and my wife is working at it as we speak.  She was third on the list!

It strikes me that the little people---if you have any---might enjoy camping out in your own backyard, if either you or your better half can stand to keep them company out there, and you don't have any ax-murderers in your community.  You may have to read a long bedtime story to keep them in bed long enough to fall asleep.  If they're the sort of kids who need to be put in a padded cell, well, it takes all sorts.

Culinary Arts

This morning, I made myself a fabulous breakfast.  I am full of misgivings about this recipe, because, as with many of the matters that I write about, it is likely to be something that isn't for the taste of the vast majority of citizens!  Anyhow, here it is.  (It is just an omelette, but one that ought not to be generalized any which way.)

Omelet with Mushrooms

Introduction:  (You may skip this introduction, with no penalty.)  Omelets are very forgiving things.  You must make sure not to burn it; and most times, you can eat it even if you do burn it.  There are a few little details that I add, which I think help the taste, but you might think it mere superstition.  Important:  If you're a bad cook, it is probably because you get impatient, and turn the heat way up, to cook it faster.  This will not work.  Anyway: awayy we go, in the immortal words of Jackie Gleason...

Ingredients

2 eggs (for a single serving; four eggs for 2-3 people.  For more, make two omelets, please.)

1/2 cupful of sliced Shiitake mushrooms  (Can use any mushrooms, but my instructions are for this kind.)

3 slices of Canadian bacon!  (I know you might not have this on hand!  Well, you could substitute regular bacon, or a slice of sausage patty, but all bets are off if you do.)

A tablespoon of water, salt to taste, a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper, a tiny pinch of black pepper.  (You could substitute a teaspoon of soy sauce for the water.  Use hardly any salt; the bacon or the sausage will make it too salty otherwise, and the same with the soy sauce.  The cayenne pepper should be hardly noticeable.  We're not making Mexican food, here.  The same goes for the black pepper.)

Have ready: a medium fry-pan / skillet for the omelet.  Clean it nicely, and put in enough oil or butter to coat the bottom, and leave it on the lowest possible heat setting on a back burner.  You should use a second, smaller fry-pan for the first part of the prep.

Some butter.  Three drops of lemon, or a tiny bit of chopped tomato (e.g. 1/8 of a Romano tomato).

Method

Put the water, salt and pepper(s) in a bowl, and mix them up.  (This ensures that the cayenne pepper doesn't clump together and kill someone.)  Crack open the eggs, add them to the bowl; beat them together slightly.  Don't beat them up into a frothy mix; that would not be good.  Leave aside.

Cut up the mushrooms into strips.  Cut up the Canadian bacon into strips.

Put the smaller fry-pan on low heat, with a tiny bit of butter.  Put in the bacon and the mushroom, and fry slowly, over low-to-medium heat, until the bacon is browned, and the mushrooms sweat.  (This is something they do when they're cooking: they get covered with a layer of moisture.)  Lay this fry-pan aside, away from the cooking surfaces.  The residual heat of the pan should keep them warm.

Now turn your attention to the main skillet or fry-pan on which you're going to make the omelet.  (Bring it forward, if you really have it on a back burner.)  If the butter has been burned, you've heated it too much; in this case, get rid of the burned butter with a paper towel.

Put in a little butter--half a tablespoonful--and melt it over medium-to-low heat.

Pour in the egg mix, and patiently wait until it sets; that is, the bottom layer should be cooked, but the top may still be liquid.

With a rubber or wooden spatula, move one edge of the egg mix to the middle, allowing the liquid egg to flow around to the bare area of the pan.  Wait until the whole thing is set enough that nothing is flowing.

Carefully put in the mushroom / bacon mix, piled up in a sort of crocodile shape across the middle of the egg.  It doesn't really matter if it goes everywhere, but you might not be able to fold it.

Add the lemon, nicely spaced, onto the mushroom mix, or add the little bit of tomato.

With a wide spatula, fold one half of the omelet over across the pile of mushroom in the middle.

Let this cook for about half a minute, and serve.  There might be a little uncooked egg in the middle; if you absolutely don't want this, cook it for a whole minute.

What to do if you're using ordinary bacon, or sausage:

Cut up the bacon into little pieces with cooking scissors.  (If you don't have these, make a note to acquire some soon.  For now, use a sharp knife instead.)  Once the bacon is just cooked, with no uncooked parts, add the mushrooms, and proceed as before.

Sausage:  Flatten the patty (or slice up the link), cook over low or medium fire; wait until the grease appears.  Pour off the grease if there's more than just a little.  Crumble the sausage.  If you must, take the fried patty off, chop up with a knife, and put it back.  Proceed with the mushroom.

Quite honestly, this is just the general method of making an omelet.  The only novel instructions here are (1) the little bit of cayenne, (2) the little bit of lemon, and (3) the filling.  The remaining cautions and instructions are just to ensure that you make a decent generic omelet.  You can fill an omelet with any reasonable mix of non-egg stuff.  Just stay away from silly things such as: french fries, and potatoes, generally.  (They will be better cooked separately and served by the side of the omelet.)  Steaks, etc.  Oatmeal and fruits, too, do not work.  Also yogurt, leftover Jello, or pizza.  Salad will also not work, in general.

Happy experimenting!!

Arch

Easter, Heighway's Dragon, and Other Fancy Stuff

Dear Friends and Other Readers of This Blog:

A hearty hello to you all, on this feast which I do not celebrate, and on which it is impossible to have a very good time this year, especially since this spring-related festival is largely celebrated outdoors (and with friends and family).

Easter
One reason I don't celebrate Easter is because of its---admittedly tenuous---connection with older religions and human sacrifice.  Of course Christians tend to say that, well, their version of human sacrifice was really the end of the practice of human sacrifice.  In any case, they go on to say, the crucifixion, when it took place, was not seen as sacrifice, exactly; it was a political execution, which was subsequently exalted into a symbolic---whatchumacallit.  But whatever they say, there are hidden references to sacrifice all over the language surrounding Easter.  OK, let's leave that alone.

While I was thinking of Easter, I was driven to puzzle over why people who join the Christian clergy do so.  In my youth, I observed that many religious leaders were intelligent, persuasive people.  Today, some of the clergy are certainly quite intelligent and perceptive people, but I seem to notice that a great many plodders are finding their way into the leadership of organized religion.  Why does anyone become a priest or a minister?  Christians would claim that an atheist such as me could never understand this mystery.  But I have some guesses.

One reason is that some of them are impelled to be shepherds to their community.  They see their friends, and people in their group, as leaderless, and needing comfort and guidance, and they train to be clergy to provide that guidance and leadership.

Another reason is that they have 'religious experiences', and feel the need to share these with people, especially people who seem to need such a description to validate their own experiences, or to give some sort of external meaning to their lives.

Another reason is sheer ambition, which often joins up with delusions of grandeur.  It is mostly those affected by these motives that set up mega-churches, together with the feeling that their religion, whatever it is based on, needs to have a mass movement behind it to give it any power.  If it was only providing guidance that was your motive, a mega-church would not have been necessary.  Your flock need not be enormous for you to shepherd it (unless you really had an eye to someday creating a meat-packing plant).

I have no thoughts about religion generally to share with you today, except that the number of people who identify as atheists keeps growing, and the number of ordinary intelligent people who become clergy is clearly dwindling, except those who do so cynically, in their quest for personal power.  In turn, I suppose, this suggests that the people who flock to mega-churches must be, on the one hand, blind to the character-failings of their religious leaders, and on the other, have a deep need which these churches satisfy.  I feel that this indicates flaws in their own psychological make-up, and when they get together as a group, this creates a dangerous aggregation of personalities.  But what can you do?

Calendric Matters
The method, or methods, by which Easter and Passover are established each year are interesting.  (Very interesting, for those of you who need italics to be persuaded about anything.  You know who you are, and are not.)  (Amaaazing, for any followers of Trump who may have wandered in here.  Welcome, but please leave us alone in the future.)

Easter.  Well, the Wikipedia article on the calculation of the date of Easter is very learned, by which I mean: more tending to confuse than to illuminate.  (That may not be intentional, but they achieve this unfortunate end by providing a lot of history and extraneous facts, within which they hide the actual process.  There are also many technical terms, some of them in ancient languages.)  But, once I peeled away the history, this is what I gathered.  (If this is wrong, I apologize; the article was not intended for non-specialists.)

Easter is the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox.

Note 1:  The Spring Equinox is not that actual Equinox, necessarily; it is the Ecclesiastical Equinox, which means either that it is the Church-Approved Equinox, or the Equinox as calculated by traditional Church Methods.  I don't understand this; now that we have competent astronomers who can tell us when the Equinox takes place, why should we leave it to church officials whose expertise does not include calculation of an Equinox?  Actually, any idiot could do it; just hop over to Stonehenge, and do it with the stones.

Note 2:  Sometimes, at least in the past, the date was delayed by a week to avoid a certain sort of collision with the Passover.  OK, I understand this.  It has always been an uneasy truce between Christianity and Judaism, and this exception may have to do with historical matters, or matters of observation.  It could be at least the fault of just the Jewish authorities.

Note 3:  Carl Friedrich Gauss provided a rule to calculate Easter that substituted a formula to obviate the need for having to observe the full moon immediately after the Equinox.  (This is known as The Paschal Full Moon.  The term Paschal means many things, among them Easter-related.)  All of these rules and formulas were in aid of determining the Paschal Full Moon (Ecclesiastical variety) without exposing oneself to the elements (which would be unscientific).

Passover.  The Hebrew (Jewish) calendar is a Lunar-solar calendar; that is to say, it calculates by lunar months for months, but by the solar calendar for years.  This means that (just as our modern calendar has to add an extra day in February for Leap Years) the Hebrew Calendar has to add not only extra (leap-) days to certain months, but extra (leap-) months to certain years.  There are more than 12 lunar months in a year, so every once in a while, they have to add a whole extra month.  My brain is somewhat overburdened with all this information, so I do not know whether the Hebrew Year is exactly as long as a modern astronomical year (and the extra days are filled in with a padding month), or whether they just let their year be shorter (unjustifiably considering that my readers are all non-Jewish; if some of you are Jewish, Welcome!  My pride knows no bounds!!) and every once in a while, use a leap month to align the years.  If they line their years with ours every year, well, they will have an extra short month every year.

Anyhow, the Passover is a week-long observation.  It begins on the 15th of the month of Nisan, as far as I can tell, and lasts for a week, though extra-religious Jews will observe for eight days, though I don't know whether they put the extra day at the beginning of the period or at the end.  I am also not clear whether there is a day called The Passover, and in which case, which day it is; the first day, which I presume is The Sabbath, or the last, which is either the day before the Sabbath, or the Sabbath.  (Though I am interested for strictly cultural but non-religious reasons, these matters are of interest in the relationships between the observations of the two religions.  Numerous Christians, I have learned, partake in the observation of Passover with their Jewish friends.)

Heighway's Dragon

And now for something completely different.  When I was a mathematics teacher (the word professor has unfortunate connotations, and in any case at our school you were not considered a professor unless you were a full professor, which was a rank to which I did not aspire) I became interested in fractals, a topic that gained a great deal of interest among the public for a decade or two, and has now been thrown on the garbage pile of mere curiosities.

However, I happened to mention to my wife and her sister that I was vaguely interested in creating a certain fractal, called Heighway's Dragon---which is considered of even less importance than most fractals---out of embroidery, that is, using, er, I forget the term needlepoint.  To my horror, nothing would do for my wife but that I was hustled to a craft store, at which I had to buy a huge embroidery frame (I don't know what the proper word is; they're a sort of pair of concentric hoops that hold your base fabric like a sort of vise), and special embroidery base fabric, on which you sew your design, like a tapestry.

One of the chief properties of Heighway's Dragon is that it is a space-filling curve.  Many space-filling curves exist; they are basically designs that consist of an entire sequence of curves, where the first is a simple line, and each successive curve is more complex and more dense, until they appear to be a solid block.

This is one of the most famous, called the Hilbert Space-Filling Curve.  The actual Hilbert S-F-C can be considered to be the entire sequence of images, or its limit, which is, contrary to what a non-mathematician would think, not just a solid block.  It certainly would appear to be a solid block, but of course things are often not what they appear to be.

Heighway's Dragon (or the Heighway-Harter Dragon) is illustrated by an old post on YouTube by me:

Heighway Dragon

Here's another representation of this dragon.

As you can see, from the YouTube video, each successive dragon is obtained by (A) dividing each straight-line 'cell' in the middle, and bending it into a 90-degree angle.  This doubles the number of 'cells' into 2, 4, 8, and so on.

The animated GIF shows that the dragon can also be obtained by joining two dragons, head-to-head, at 90 degrees.  You get the same kinds of dragons in both ways, except for them being rotated.

Heighway's Dragon has nothing to do with Easter (nor has Easter anything to do with the Dragon).  They're both things I happen to be interested in today.

Arch

Bernie Sanders Bows Out

I, with numerous millions of liberal Democrats across the US, mourn and deplore Bernie Sander's departure from the Primary race.

Some of us understood from the outset what Bernie was saying, concerning the unfairness of the political game as it was coming to be played.  From the time of Ronald Reagan, the rate at which the wealth of the nation was divided between the few richest, most powerful people, and everybody else, was increasingly out of balance, until (as Bernie keeps reminding us) the top 3 most rich families own more than half the country.

Elizabeth Warren focused on the fact that, in addition, private health insurance kept people in a state of financial uncertainty.  A prolonged illness, or an expensive treatment could throw a family into bankruptcy.  Very little separated families from being comfortably off, on the one hand, and being desperately poor.

Behind all this is the urgent need to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 elections.  In addition to people disliking how Trump runs the White House and the Government, we have the Coronavirus destroying the health of millions.  At first, before the epidemic, we deplored Trump because it seemed that he had no feeling for the poor, minorities, women, and other sectors of society that had come to symbolize a station in life with insufficient power to fight back against the forces that usually oppress them.  But now, his actions seem to show him to be someone who cannot be trusted with the welfare of the public in any way.  We may have objected to the untruths he uttered every day just on principle.  But now, we see them as actually immediately dangerous.

Medicare for all may have been something we thought of as nice to have.  But now we see how impossible it is to face anything close to a pandemic with ordinary private insurance.  Trump supports companies that manufacture and market and sell such essential things as masks and ventilators for profit, when thousands are dying because of the unavailability of these things.  If there ever was a time when the profit motive should be set aside, it is now.  Supporting a For-Profit approach to the needs of this moment is to be a sociopath.

When it is time for the election, we shall have to vote for Joe Biden.  Joe Biden is a good politician, but as he grew older, it seems to me that he thought more In The Box every year.

While Sanders was saying: it is time to change how this country is run.  We must elect someone who sees the way forward clearly, who will fight for clean energy, and for the economic rights of ordinary people, and for this we will have to defeat Trump, Biden was saying: we need to defeat Trump.  I can do what Trump said he would do, but a lot more efficiently.  I know how to persuade undecided voters, and voters who supported Trump last time, but have got sick of Trump to vote for me.  This is why you should select me as your nominee.

When Biden realized that he would have to do more than simply convince people that moderates and former Republicans would vote for him, he belatedly began to put forward policies that Democrats would find attractive.

I find it very difficult to support a candidate whose main objective is to win the election and defeat Trump.  Obviously, defeating Trump is a central objective for any Democrat nominee.  But it would be satisfying to know that our nominee knows what to do once he or she gets in the White House!  It is no longer enough to get in the White House, and make it look just like the Obama White House, wonderful though that was.

The President Elect will have the titanic task of restoring the country, the economy, and the health of the people.  I don't think Trump can even dream of doing that.  Biden can dream, but he will need far more help than I can see him getting.

A News Update for Anyone Who Isn't Hooked In

Instead of a major opinion blast from me, I'm just relaying some news I get in the mail from the New York Times.  (I know, fake news, etc, etc.  But it is good to know this stuff.)

Most of you know that the number of jobless claims last week exceeded 3 million (or was it this week?) and is expected to go beyond 5 million today.  If you've lost your source of income due to staying home, make a claim; this is no time for pride.

The ventilators in a government stockpile (most probably a Federal stockpile) are now unusable, because a maintenance contract had lapsed.  Well, I don't know whom to blame, but we sure need a law that says that essential maintenance contracts have a long grace period.  Also, if the Feds intend to cancel a contract, they should jolly well say so, instead of quietly letting it lapse.

The economic crisis has led the Government to reconsider a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, that everybody had been talking about during the 2016 election, but never went anywhere.  I wonder who is to blame for that?  If implemented, it could put millions of people to work.

People who get Social Security, who typically do not file tax returns, will get their $1200 now.  Apparently the IRS has reconsidered; which suggests that they balked at doing this at first.

Apparently France has been paying businesses not to lay off their workers.  The workers still stay at home, but the businesses are given a check to prevent them from throwing workers off the payroll.  In various parts of the US, businesses have been very quick to lay off workers as soon as the business cannot operate.  This is what is considered being a good business owner.

The mayor of LA urged all LA residents to wear face coverings in public.  (A good move, though home-made face coverings aren't enough to protect health professionals, ambulance drivers, etc.)

Joe Biden has asked the DNC to move the national convention to August.  (This sounds like Biden is more concerned about the nomination than the epidemic, but in fact he has been sending out a stream of suggestions that Trump and the Administration can take.  This move is just campaign-related news, not all the Biden news.)

The drug Hydroxychloroquine, a Malaria drug, is said to have helped a small number of COVID cases in China.  (The results are not statistically significant, but you can be sure that they're looking into it.)

Wimbledon has been cancelled for the first time since WWII.

Doctor Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist whose reliable statements are a welcome relief from the uninformed guessing of the White House, has been threatened by who are called conspiracy theorists on Facebook.  He now has armed guards protecting him.

People in the South East of the US---and other places---have continued to travel, in defiance of local and regional advice to stay home, and are observed to be spreading the virus.  About 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin celebrated Spring Break in Mexico.  Now dozens of them have tested positive for the Corona virus.  (sigh)

About two million firearms were sold in the US in March.  This is the largest number since 2013.

Idaho became the first state to ban transgender females from sports.  This could mean that student athletes will have to be sex tested.  (Obviously this has nothing to do with the virus spread.)

That's it for the news.  The rest of this post is to document some shenanigans that are taking place, about which we have heard first hand.

Finishing Up Week Two--2020/04/01

It has been less than two weeks, but it feels like we've been doing this forever!!  Of course, because I'm retired (though I'm a little younger than the typical retiree) time becomes sort of amorphous, because I was accustomed to my weekly schedule giving some shape to my week; e.g. Department Meetings were on Tuesdays, and so on.

Things were made worse because my wife was permitted to work from home, for a couple of days a week, but then they hauled her in for some meetings, because there was nothing for her bosses to do otherwise.  So she sat at the window, and sent out e-mail after e-mail, and made call after call, and occasionally called out some piece of news that she was getting, and which caused her indignation!

My daughter, out in Arizona, was being kept at work, though she would much rather have worked from home.  She is a sort of tech trouble-shooter for her company, which is a tech-heavy operation, with several workers who got themselves constantly in trouble.  But half of these were working on Mondays and Thursdays, and the other half was working Tuesdays and Fridays.  Because of having to handle other people's hardware, there was actually very little distancing at her office.  Arizona folks are by no means all the same.  But the State Government tended to think that the virus threat was highly overblown, and the owners of the businesses took their cues, I think, from the administration.  Still, many major events scheduled for February and March were cancelled or postponed, which the Arizona citizens who had bought into the idea of "This will all go away in April, like magic," shook their heads at.

It is hard to say 'I told you so,' and virtually no satisfaction in saying it, because the neighsayers (I know, I know) just shrug away these reminders, saying either that (1) it is a hoax, or (2) it was a hoax, or (3) I never said that, or (4) don't be nasty.

As the number of cases rose, most of my daughter's co-workers were quick to agree that distancing was needed, but they unfortunately did not have the sort of scientific background that would enable them to make informed judgments about what sorts of actions would prevent contagion.

Even here, in Pennsylvania---not that I believe that the education of Pennsylvanians is in any way superior---distancing was slow in catching on.  On a visit to the Supermarket (which is where my pharmacy of choice is located, unfortunately) I realized that many of the shoppers, who were keeping their distance from me and from each other, seemed to believe that the virus was a sort of radiation, that traveled in straight lines.

I had realized that matters were going to get a lot worse before they got better.  But I think I had the wrong impression of (A) how much worse, and (B) for how long.  There is a high probability that many of us are going to be cooped-up at home for at least another month.  The Democratic Convention was scheduled for July, but I can't find any information about when it is scheduled for presently.  June 2nd is turning out to be another enormous set of primaries, more than half as many candidates to be awarded as on super Tuesday.

The June 2nd packet of primaries, many of which are in states that are permitting voting by mail, is certainly a last gasp for Bernie Sanders.  I have to wonder why he has not fared better in the primaries up until now; the South Carolina primary, which hugely favored Joe Biden, affected the super Tuesday voters, who obviously belonged to the 'Let's follow the crowd' crowd.  After all, a large part of the battle is to give support to the candidate most likely to win the primary, and then to win the election.  Apart from the herd motive ('electability'), were voters too lazy to go to the polls?  Will they be as lazy come November, or will they suddenly shake off their stupor, and vote bravely?  What difference will the possibility of voting by mail make?

A huge factor we have to be aware of is that unsalaried workers, those who are paid an hourly wage, pay an enormous price for staying safe at home.  They will be safe, but they will be hungry.  There is no provision in the US for anyone to stay away from work, no matter how important it is.  Businesses lose money when people stay home, and they pass along the costs to their workers, and cut their payrolls.  In countries labeled as 'Socialist', there are laws that enable workers to earn a significant portion of their normal paycheck if they have to miss work for a good reason.  In the US we do have such a thing.  But those who can benefit from this 'employment insurance' are a small minority, and the number of weeks the benefit lasts is very small, and not sufficient to handle an epidemic such as this.  There are probably many conservatives who would say: who can predict that something like this could happen?  This is the whole crux of the idea of any type of insurance.  I personally think insurance, as we have it today, is a load of crap.  It pays companies to take risks on behalf of people, only to give up when there is a really big problem.  It will be interesting to see just how much the big health insurance companies will support the treatment of large numbers of their clients infected with the virus.

The other problem is that hourly workers who cannot work due to distancing or the shutdown, are actually laid off.  For no fault of their own, they cannot (automatically) return to work.  This never happens in even a slightly socialist economy.

When this business is over, if Joe Biden happens to win the nomination, he will have to adopt most, if not all, of the policies that Bernie Sanders has been advocating.  If Trump wins the election, he will also have to do the same.  The economy (also known as The Large Corporations,) may or may not go like a rocket.  But many who support Trump are, as far as I can tell, people who are hourly workers, and all eyes will be on him, to see whether he is able to make life livable for his supporters.  Many independents seem to think that Trump has turned a new leaf, and it is only the dastardly Democrats who prevent him from doing great things for the Common Man.  So winning this election is something that Trump desires greatly, but does he think he has the instincts to repair the economy and the nation after this huge calamity?  This is not a man who think in terms of what he can do to help the common people.  This, rather, is an ordinary man, who protects his own interests, and those of his friends.  Even the Chinese are sending us ventilators and masks.  This time, what will Trump do, if he visits the disaster zone which is New York?  Toss them rolls of paper towels?  But I should not be nasty.

Arch