We in the American Church of Shutdown put our faith in masks, for they shall preserve us from the coronaplague, even as they have preserved those in Peru, Spain, France, and other countries with strict mask laws and high compliance rates.
In New England, however, now that the weather is cold, mask+eyeglasses = fog.
What about this idea: heated eyeglasses to prevent fogging. Bose managed to get some batteries into ordinary-looking eyeglasses (“Frames”). Is it hopeless to imagine that sufficient battery power could be mustered to heat the lenses for as much time as people spend outdoors in the fall, winter, and early spring?
Separately, now that #Science tells us that coronaplague is spread via aerosols, will people who directly experience eyeglass fogging begin to develop heretical beliefs that masking the general population might be ineffective against the spread of Covid-19?
U.S. Patent 5,319,397, “Defogging eyeglasses”: Eyeglasses worn in winter weather conditions are subject to fogging due to condensation of water vapor. A method of removing condensation from eyeglasses is provided. The method involves heating the lenses of the eyeglasses, by making the lenses a part of an electrical circuit. Electric current is supplied to the electric circuit from a power source external to the eyeglasses. The size and weight of the power source may be minimized by utilizing a timer or a power regulator. A smaller power source is also made possible by selectively heating the lenses, applying more power in the area of the lenses most likely to experience fogging. (this guy stole my idea, it seems, with this filed-in-1992 patent, and there is a massive battery dongle)
More than 20 student organizations were found to have violated GW’s gender, race and religion nondiscrimination policy, according to an email officials sent to those organizations last month.
“The University does allow organizations to choose between open and selective criteria for membership – however, selective criteria for general membership into the organization must abide by University policy, including its nondiscrimination policies,” the email states.
Graham said officials contacted 23 student organizations like Girls Who Code College Loop, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Albanian American Student Association.
“Queens Movement is focused on women’s empowerment – how can we be more open and inclusive within our organization if our organization is meant to support women?” Morrisey said in an email.
“Despite these concerns, we remain committed to remaining a safe and empowering place for all of our sisters, regardless of their gender identity, and are confident that these new measures will not infringe upon our ability to do so,” Ades said.
“Title IX tried to protect students from discrimination, and sometimes the best way to do that is to create a space specifically for minority voices,” Mobarhan said in an email. “Orgs like DPE sorority, Women in Finance, GW Women of Color, Women in Computer Science and so much more are necessary for equal opportunity.”
So much great stuff here! GWU is 62 percent female (US News), but those who identify as “women” are examples of a “minority”. It is possible to be a “sister” even if one identifies as a “man”, for example. One will soon be able to identify as a “girl who codes” without identifying as a “girl”. Most confusing: How exactly does a person identify as an Albanian American?
(Readers who thought that I was merely an MIT nerd: I attended GWU as a 14-year-old growing up in Washington, D.C, then transferred to MIT as a 15-year-old sophomore. In other words, I transferred from a school that is now 62 percent female to one that was 17 percent female and called myself intelligent. Also fun: during my attendance there, a dispute arose among the trustees regarding how to make the school more “selective”. One trustee was quoted as responding, “There is a place for a mediocre university in this country and GW is it”. I personally had a great experience there. The professors were passionate about teaching and weren’t consumed with their labs, postdocs, graduate students, etc.)
One of my Facebook friends is featured in this image from the Maskachusetts State House (source of more than 50 governor’s orders this year):
My favorite part of this is the Statue of Liberty wearing a mask while holding a sign that reads “yearning to breathe free”.
These handmaids remind me to ask… What’s happening with the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation?
(Separately, the image contains RBG’s dying wish: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” Does that wish, following an 87-year life, remind anyone of (the awesome) Sandra Bullock’s response to “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” in Miss Congeniality? “That would be… harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.”)
“Amy Coney Barrett’s Rise Is a Threat to Families Like Mine” (NYT, from an author who lives in California): It’s not often that I get gay married. The week I did it a second time was the same week we heard about the anti-gay proclivities of the Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, and some current justices called into question the very ruling that allowed me to get married in the first place. … You can see why the Obergefell decision was such a keystone for us, extending the same rights and protections to all when it comes to marriage. That even includes the right to divorce, which I did in 2017. … In 2018, I unexpectedly fell deeply in love again. Within a year, I was engaged, and we had a baby in late 2019, adding a daughter to my two sons. … A few weeks ago, we married in a tiny, socially distanced, masks-on event in an outdoor venue.
The righteous Trump-haters at New Yorker magazine have been in the news lately, but not for their four years of anti-Trump journalism. The story that has excited public interest is mostly about Jeffrey Toobin’s unscripted appearance on camera. What I’m more curious about is the original purpose of the call. From the same VICE article:
Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker’s biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.
How was this supposed to be productive? A bunch of Democrats get together and half of them pretend to be Republicans for an hour or two? If you’re a journalist, what is the point of this? Why not simply wait for stuff to happen and then report on it?
Let me sample the at-least-daily New Yorker emails that I get. I deleted a bunch of these, but Gmail says that there are 1,394 left that contain the word “Trump”!
From October 23, 2020:
From January 25, 2020, a Letter from Trump’s Washington (he owns the whole city now, not just the lease on one hotel!)…
Immigrants were our last best hope on November 24, 2019:
If only there were some way to replace or dilute the natives with these wonderful people! In the meantime, Trump was going to impeach himself on October 4, 2019:
This is a professional career woman? With that little-girl croaky voice and poor-me face and the trembly “I’m going to cry at any moment” narration supposedly because of the trauma of reading out a prepared script about something discussed in therapy and rehearsed dozens, if not hundreds, of times with a legal team and other advisors. A trauma that required putting two doors on a big costly house. Yes, this is the elite professional woman that feminism has created after 50 years of nonstop grievance-mongering.
It was the Russians on July 20, 2018:
On May 1, 2018, we were running short of low-skill Syrians:
Trump was hated by “most of the population” on January 30, 2018:
It was the Russians on September 22, 2017:
On August 18, 2017, shortly before Congress cooperated with Trump to pass the most substantial changes to the U.S. tax code in 20 years(?):
It was the Russians on February 15, 2017:
On February 4, 2017, the magazine was concerned that Americans would stop thinking about “race-related history” and all things LGBTQIA+:
December 29, 2015:
New York was anti-fascist long before it was fashionable!
The passionate curiosity regarding Donald Trump’s net worth goes back at least to July 29, 2015:
Trump won’t win, but he will get in some peoples’ heads… Also, the Greeks need some more of that sweet German cash! July 8, 2015:
On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I drove through Bethesda, Maryland on my way back to the airport. In the neighborhoods where successful government workers might live, Biden-Harris, BLM, and rainbow signs were common. Example:
Within the yards of those who draw a paycheck from the Federal government, not a single Trump sign could be found (but maybe the virtuous removed them?).
How about the lobbyists? I drove through a neighborhood of $2-4 million homes (not quite as nice as the Bethesda house of the climate change alarmist Thomas Friedman). Not a single political sign. It seems as though the Washington elite feels that things will be okay for them regardless of who prevails!
What’s the yard sign situation here in the Boston area? From a public sign forest in the center of Lincoln, Maskachusetts:
Note that one wag had decided to taunt the righteous with a Trump 2020 sign. This was at least the second iteration of the taunt, the first sign that I saw having been removed within 24 hours. By October 18, the Trump 2020 sign was gone, but we learn about a “Local GAY teen (& dad) 4 Biden”:
Why isn’t the local GAY teen’s “mom” (or “daddy #2”?) also “4 Biden”?
As we looked down from the Cirrus SR20 (IFR training), it occurred to me that the prison is lacking one thing: a rainbow flag. I’m hopeful that President Harris will correct this and then the prison can be renamed “Ministry of Love is Love”.
Only the first three cars have been defined, though! What happens if Sleepy Joe and President Kamala prevail in November? Do the last three cars depict Democrats holding BLM signs against a rainbow flag background?
The Samsung UN55ES8000 that was state of the art in November 2012 ($2500) has failed after perhaps 2 hours per month of use. When it can be turned on at all, the screen is filled with a random pattern. One thing that was awesome about this was the depth: just 1.2 inches. The TV is mounted in a fairly small room where one has to walk past it.
I assume that the $2500 TV is now 1080p junk and not worth repairing.
What’s a good 55-inch flat screen TV replacement? This won’t be hooked up to cable. It would be nice to have a TV with built-in Google Chromecast since that seems to be the most convenient way to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus (Hamilton every night 4-Ever!).
I am reluctant to spend big $$ again given that this thing failed after not too many hours of use.
(Should I perhaps also give a shout-out to Panasonic? A 50-inch plasma TV purchased 12 years ago and used far more than this dead Samsung is still working perfectly! It is rather thick and only 1080p resolution, but it shows no sign of flaking out. Panasonic quit the U.S. TV market in 2016.)
Despite connections to the Obama White House, things do begin to unravel for Mr. Low. I don’t want to spoil the suspense, though. The worldwide civil and criminal litigation is ongoing, but it seems safe to say that Goldman gets to keep all of its fees!
Goldman employees, the bank said, took part in a scheme to pay $1 billion in bribes to foreign officials. The bank, in turn, arranged the sale of bonds to raise $6.5 billion that was intended to benefit the people of Malaysia but was instead looted by the country’s leaders and their associates.
In the end, the scandal, which netted the bank a relatively paltry $600 million in fees, will cost Goldman and its current and former executives dearly. The bank itself will pay more than $5 billion in penalties to regulators around the world, more than it had to pay for peddling bonds backed by risky mortgages a decade ago. And it has moved to recoup or withhold more than $100 million in executive compensation, a rare move for a Wall Street bank.
(It is fascinating how the NYT characterizes a 10 percent fee for selling bonds (more typical is less than 1 percent, according to the book; the super high fees Goldman was able to get made it obvious that fraud was involved, said the author) as “relatively paltry”)
This is a good time to check in with Malaysia. Like Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the country has enjoyed a low death rate from Covid-19:
Note that the largest and most prominently featured signs are a rainbow flag (in a city with 358 gay households) and a Black Lives Matters sign (“Black people — many of them immigrants — make up less than 2 percent of Maine’s population but almost a quarter of its coronavirus cases” (Washington Post)). You have to scan down with your eyes and read a smaller font to see the name of the bar: Portland Hunt & Alpine Club. Maybe these symbols are like the crosses that adorn the top of church facades? Christian believers expect to see a cross that is larger than the text providing the name of the church.
How would a person seeking a gay bar find a gay bar, if every bar signals that its primary mission is serving the LGBTQIA+ community?
Also from Portland, October 15, every other table featured COVID-19 fatalities..
When a break-up requires a trip to the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles…
When you don’t have to lock your car because young people don’t know how to operate the four-speed transmission:
Don’t invite anyone out on your boat, including family members:
