I’ve been on vacation this last week… I’ll get back to regular posting next week.   However in the previous week, I helped with the publication and was co-author of this new book that features stories by Randy Coppersmith and Dennis Richardson.

“This anthology of stories and poems The Best of Words Matter 2021, is the second book by this team of talented writers. It has a little bit of everything for readers — especially those who appreciate variety and humor. For those who understand the value of words, this book offers beautiful poetry as well as thought-provoking stories about business, economics, politics and sports — including baseball and golf. Compelling story telling by accomplished authors presents a composition of works that bring back the feeling of in-depth news reporting, as well as thoughtful and insightful commentary on life in America today. It’s a fun read throughout.”

Good friends and a good single malt is a recipe for solving the world’s problems – Mike Varga

At least until the morning! 

Anonymity

How can anyone know all you think

If you don’t occasionally make a stink

You think it matters little today

Because they won’t listen anyway

As anonymity of the masses rule

Forwarding some mindless drool

That you know is about winning a game

Without added-value of a label or name

You know you have so much more to add

Than those unthoughtful and persistently mad

While I say, it’s hard to know who you are

If you never reach for your intellectual star

If you never say your piece

Or sign anything more than a lease

When you have an opinion you never share

Even though you privately, desperately care

Don’t allow others to talk for you

It’s time to add something new

For the world could be positively changed

With your words properly arranged

Maybe your thoughts are just what’s needed

And we’d all be better off

if your thoughtful words were heeded

Stream of Dreams

Dreams have a life of their own
They need nothing from us
But to watch, and occasionally play our roles
They roll on like a stream as they please
There are tributaries and rivulets
That take side trips,  so bizarre and unexpected
We can leave those more easily
But they have a way of coming back
Or rather letting us back in
As they are always flowing
In the direction they choose
Sometimes there are rapids
And anxiety is our canoe without a paddle
We careen from boulders to overhanging trees
Thinking we can make a difference
By leaning and thrashing, 
But never we do…
So too the lazy river
The one we don’t want to end
Where we float in enjoyment
And it is always this one 
That the alarm clock brings to an End!

I’ve heard people say that achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 is the key… with that we can get back to normal.  Protesters are saying without some risk, we cannot be free.  I really wonder if they have any idea what they are talking about.  I’ve done some analysis, to help illustrate the impact of achieving herd immunity.  Personally, I believe the cost is too high and that we should extend and continue to apply social distancing (hate that phrase by the way… should be physical distancing, or simply stay away from me!) until there is a vaccine, or therapeutic treatment that would reduce the severity and death rate to something more like 0.1%, comparable to the flu.

Anyway… here is the math for herd immunity impact.

Starting point:
US Population = 330,000,000
Cases reported = 1,176,239 as of 5 May 2020
Deaths reported = 68,105 as of 5 May 2020 – 5.79% death rate
Assume death rate is over-stated due to inadequate testing by 3 times = 1.93% Death rate

Achieving 70% herd immunity point
Cases = 231,000,000
Deaths = 4,458,350 … this is 1.4% of the US Population

At this level, everyone will know someone that dies from this disease as most people know well over 100 people, so at 1.4 deaths per 100 people, you will know someone or two, or many more that will pass from this COVID-19 to achieve herd immunity

Now let’s also look at the cost of such devastation.  If we assume just $2,500 per case for the cost of drugs, care, away from work (I think this is conservative) and we assume $150,000 is the cost of each death, for drugs, care, and impact to families (three weeks in a hospital must be much more than this)… then the cost of achieving herd immunity is more than $1.2T in direct costs, this is in addition to the rescue/stimulus funding that has been allocated and will be allocated in subsequent phases.  Total cost to economy is likely to be $5 to 6T.

When someone talks about achieving herd immunity, you now have at least an idea of what they are implying in number of deaths, and potential costs.

It would be far less expensive and less deadly to give every man, woman, and child $10,000 for supplies and incentive to have them stay in absolute quarantine for 4 weeks to eradicate this virus (at least in the USA).

A continuation in my attempt to channel Mark Twain into today’s world…

If self-promotion was an Olympic sport, Mr. Trump would sweep Gold, Silver and Bronze.

I hear capitalism makes for the best healthcare system, I suppose it is true if you have money or are famous, or a good job. Maybe the rest of us will just try to avoid the Trump virus.

Seems like a whole lot of people are discovering during the lock down what it’s like to be retired without an income and too little savings, might just be a much-needed wake-up call about retirement savings when we get back to work.

When we are done with lock-down, don’t say you don’t know, when I ask you where should we go to dinner.

I cannot understand why anyone would think of a pandemic as a partisan opportunity, the virus doesn’t know about politics, but it has an uncanny knack for highlighting politic divides.

We wanted a strong federal response to the pandemic, until we get one.

How is it that the wealthiest country in the world has the longest food lines ever?  Guess wealth means something different these days.

Nothing like homeschooling to bring about an appreciation for teachers that occupy our children for 6 or 7 blessed hours each day.

Now that sports are sidelined, maybe poetry and art will take their rightful place in the attention of mankind.   ESPN, was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, maybe becomes the Poetry and Arts Programming Network (PAPN).

The GOP leader I admired most in my time, said in his second inaugural address for Americans to “bind up the nation’s wounds” “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”  While our current leader seems inclined toward malice toward everyone, charity to only those that praise him before God as right and mighty.  Then he still says he gets worse press than a president that had half-a-country pissed at him in Civil War.

In my day, we thought if women got the vote, they’d force all us men to be nicer and look after the world better.  We were wrong, they have the vote, and we are no nicer than before.

If women agreed, then we’d have change.

I think you can be nice to half the people half the time and get half way there with half of them.

Mark Twain (imagined)