COVID - Natural selection at work.

I don't have cable news. 

Even if I did, I wouldn't watch it.

It seems as though people tend to form their opinion on everything based on sources that, rather than reporting the news in perspective they pick a side, dig in and come up run to that side.  Forming public opinion rather than presenting facts and leaving it up to people to form an opinion that fits their own unique situation.

I joined a Facebook group recently because it seemed as though it stood for civil rights, that even though there's a pandemic going on it doesn't give public officials the right to step over the 1st Amendment. 

This morning This Star Telegram story was reposted:

"Hundreds of people crammed into a warehouse in downtown Fort Worth on Friday and Saturday night to celebrate a bar director’s birthday in spite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Corey Mobley said he decided to have a party for his 37th birthday at the last minute and invited hundreds of his friends to the secret location. The rain on Friday night kept some people away, so he decided to have a second round on Saturday.

“I was bored and there’s nothing else to do,” he said about the parties.  "

What the heck? 

I agree that coronavirus has been blown way out of proportion.  We've had three pandemics since my grandmother was born that are worse than this one, and we've just recently surpassed the 2009 - 2010 swine flu pandemic (that most people weren't even aware of).  More about that here.

It seems as though people fall into two groups, "those that take it way too seriously", and "those in denial that it's any threat at all".

Currently we're at about 325k deaths worldwide.  Just about all those deaths have some sort of comorbidity, i.e. a health condition that contributes to a person's inability to fight it off.  Walking through the hardware store the other day I saw quite a few people that would probably have problems with comorbidity. 

I have an issue with people that ask others make sacrifices on their behalf, and then get angry/offended when the answer is "no".  I have even more of an issue when they decide to use government to force others to make sacrifices on their behalf.

I don't know how to view people gathering by the hundreds in defiance of common sense though.  On the one hand, they're exercising their rights, and I'm sorry but no matter what, I can't believe that we can legislate away stupidity.

Or can we?  Is natural selection considered a law of nature, or just a theory? 

Call me a heartless bastard, but I don't believe in keeping people alive as long as possible.  This is a far cry from the Nazi policy of exterminating people who are a "drain on society", but I think prolonging life past a certain point is disrespectful of life itself.  Yes, we should continue to do medical research and allow people to live longer and happier.  No, we shouldn't keep people in misery breathing because we have a hard time saying goodbye.

What concerns me even more about the article and the hundreds of people that attended the party is the comments in the group... "hero".  Aw, c'mon now... we're seriously going to call a guy that throws a party where if one person is infected there's a potential for all the others to be a hero? 

I guess my biggest gripe here is that someone from that party may bring it home and give it to someone else, then we will all feel bad as they cry us a river on national TV. 

The history of "stop and frisk", a cautionary tale.

According to the Federal Bureau of prisons 45.7% of people in jail are there for "Drug Offenses". 

I've sat on juries where I and the majority of the jury felt that the person on trial was guilty, but a jury's decision must be unanimous, if it isn't a mis-trial is called and the person goes free.  In the trial I was a part of the District Attorney was trying to send a young man back to prison for a parole violation.  Three of the AA, female members of the jury were convinced that the police were "picking on him" and refused to convict. 

Now I can relate, the young man *said* he was on his way to What-a-burger to turn in a job application, and when offered a ride on the chilly rainy day he got in the car, not knowing that the driver sold drugs and had a gun. 

Sounds pretty cut and dry... police profiling, keeping someone from doing the things that would get them back to being a productive member of society.

Now, what if I told you the young man was white?  Well, that shouldn't matter the AA ladies decision shouldn't be based on race.  What if I told you he was a White Supremacist that had Nazi tattoos hidden under his long sleeves?  What if I told you that even though there was a mis-trial and he wouldn't go to prison for that crime he still wasn't going home that day because he was going to be waiting in jail for another trial, this one because he was found in a trailer with drugs, stolen goods, and identification that he'd stolen? 

It's hard to convict someone of a crime. 

I guess the argument could be made that it was "white privilege", but it surely wasn't because "the good ole boy network" let him go.




I have to admit, I break the law all the time.  I live in a rural area, I frequently drive down long straight empty roads.  I speed so frequently that when I do see a cop-car I struggle to remember exactly what the speed limit is.  I frequently run red-lights and stop signs on roads that have no other cars on them for miles.  I'm a menace to society, and yet, nobody notices, and I've never (knock on wood) had an accident in the area.  Years ago I got caught, rolled through a stop sign didn't notice the cop sitting in the dark parkinglot a block away.  Cop had every right to stop me, but really, what was he doing in this deserted industrial area late at night?  Protecting and serving the unpopulated warehouses?  Taking a nap?  Did I get stopped because there was a possibility that I might be drunk, or because he wanted to justify being out taking a nap?  Yeah, I paid the fine.

45%, approaching half of the prison population is there for drug offenses.  The next two closest are "Weapons, Explosives, Arson" at 19.6%, and "Sex Offenses" at 10.5%.  I'm kind of a big fan of someone who isn't allowed to have a weapon getting caught with a weapon going to jail.  Sex offenses... why is that number so low?  Are we that much better at getting stoners off the streets than rapists?  I mean I know people who are habitual drug users, and I know some people who have been raped... I'd rather spend the money making sure a rapist never gets the chance to rape someone ever again.  With COVID running through the prison system I'm OK with rapists dying, not so much for someone who got caught with drugs.

I have to admit, I'd like to see people stop doing drugs.  Especially the "hard drugs", but I'd also like to see people drink less, and not get addicted to prescription medications.  Heck, I wish I didn't have to take Zyrtec and Glucosamine every day... I wish smoking wasn't addictive, and I wish I didn't get a headache and feel like I'm not awake if I don't have morning coffee.

The best argument I've heard for "stop and frisk" is that it prevents crime.  The beginning of "stop and frisk" also known as "Terry stops" is the supreme court case "Terry vs. Ohio".  You're welcome to read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_v._Ohio but the gist of it is that the Supreme Court decided that a police officer doesn't need "Probable cause" they just need "reasonable suspicion".  In that case "John W. Terry" was observed along with two other men looking in a store window to see if there were people there as they got ready to rob it.  The three did this about a dozen times and instead of the police officer waiting for them to actually rob the store he stopped them, patted them down and found they were carrying pistols illegally.  The case went to the Supreme Court because their lawyer called it unlawful search, and asked that the case be thrown out.

Yay for Justice!  Armed robbery prevented, right?  The ruling also says "reasonable suspicion must be based on "specific and articulable facts" and not merely upon an officer's hunch." fast forward decade, Reagan declares war on drugs, inner cities are full of illeagal drugs, by 2010 1/3rd of AA men have had a felony conviction.  ...if you're a black man in an iner city, there's a 1 in 3 chance that you've been to prison... that's just the ones with a conviction.  If you know this statistic and you're in law enforcement, it means that if you observe a young black man in an inner city there's probably a 50/50 chance that he's carrying drugs.  It's the inner city version of speeding.

See the evolution of thought?  Do you understand WHY we can't say "Oh, it's OK in this situation." when it comes to civil rights? 

I'm all for staying at home during COVID.  I don't like crowds, I telecommute, there are times when I feel germophobic.  Sending people to jail for not complying with a order that is against "The right to peacefully assemble" (1st Amendment to the constitution).  Not so much.  The Governor of Texas rescinded his order to say people can't be sent to jail for violating the order.  The Texas AG paid the fine of someone who did.  The backlash of this brought hundreds of people together in a protest in Dealy Plaza in Dallas, and we had a 2% jump in deaths days after.  Maybe that's a coincidence, maybe it isn't.  The "order" never should have been given in the first place.  Close every government building, arena, public transportation, and building.  Send people to work from home if they work at a computer.  Use this time to fix roads (that always slows down traffic), but don't demand that people close small business' that have 30 customers a day and keep open big box stores where hundreds of people stand in line for toilet paper.

References:

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_v._Ohio

COVID-19 by the numbers

As I write this, COVID-19 has killed 252,758 people worldwide (5/6/2020 worldometers.info).  The world is in a panic, and not surprising "how to deal with it" is divided along party lines.

I suppose it really isn't that surprising, people who live in densely populated areas tend to lean more liberal/socialist, and those areas by their very nature of people living in close proximity also have the highest infection rate.

Look at the New York City area.  I've visited there, at one point I contemplated moving there, but I like solitude, and in order to find an affordable house with a yard someone is looking at commuting two hours if they work in the city.  Commuting by car just isn't feasible, rent on a parking spot is $1,200 a month, as much as people in other parts of the country pay for an apartment.  People simply do not drive to work in New York City.  So yes, closing businesses and sending people home makes a lot of sense.  Even taking these measures New York and New Jersey lead the nation in deaths representing half of the deaths nationally. 

I'm usually a proponent of mass transportation, this crisis has changed my mind slightly.  I still think there needs to be "personal rail" where people can get in their own car, and it will join up with other cars at stations to form "trains" but that's a blog for another day.

One of the surprising things about the numbers on worldometers is that China and India are not seeing a lot of cases.  Here are two densely populated nations that are way down the list of infections.  I'm pretty sure these numbers aren't accurate, the office that I work with in India has had two cases... conspiracy theories aside, I my theory is that lack of access to healthcare means that people get infected, recover, and it goes unreported.

As I've said in other posts, "What works in one part of the country does not work in others.".  Shut down the NYC Subway system?  You bet.  Stop packing people into arena's and theaters for sporting events and concerts?  Yup.  We live in a digital age, there's no reason why regular events can't still occur and be broadcast, just limit "seeing it live".  Yes, I know this opens the door to professional sports teams infecting each other, but really, these are athletes, the chance of them ending up in an intensive care unit is pretty minimal, and there are a lot of sailors in the Navy stuck in close proximity making a whole lot less.

Wyoming has 586 cases and 7 deaths, Alaska 368/9, Montana 455/16... those states probably had more deaths from wildlife encounters last year (I'm not going to bother looking up the numbers on those, you see my point).

Honestly, I believe people should stay home.  Not because of COVID-19, but because I personally don't like crowds.  I'm happiest going to the grocery store at midnight on a Wednesday and having the place to myself with the restock crew.  Going to the mall is not high on my priority list, I'd much rather shop Amazon and eBay from the comfort of my home.

Which leads me to my point. 

I don't have the right to tell people what to do.

First Amendment of the Bill of rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now I suppose there's a bit of grey area here, Congress hasn't made any laws.  We just have a bunch of  Governors, and Mayors on power trips, backed up by Police and Judges that have forgotten their oath of office:

To uphold the constitution of the United States.

I guess that doesn't mean anything anymore.  There's even a significant demographic of the population that's applauding them.

Funny thing though, once you've let that cat out of the bag where is the new limit to this power?  Oh this isn't really anything new, we know all about the Japanese internment camps of WWII, the forced relocation of Native Americans but those were done in the name of security during war, this is a highly contagious disease that kills people, it's different... right?  Not Necessarily.  HIV/AIDS has killed 25-35 Million people since 1981.  In order to find a pandemic more deadly you have to go back to 1520... smallpox (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/). 

Gay/Bisexual/transgender are the most at risk for contracting HIV, and 1 in 7 don't know they have it (https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/about-hiv-and-aids/who-is-at-risk-for-hiv).  By the same logic that we're using to quarantine people for COVID-19, the transgender community is a prime candidate for quarantine.  After all, the people who typically support trans rights are in favor of the quarantine, and the people opposed to the quarantine don't want transgender people using "the wrong bathroom".

Be careful about giving up your rights, and/or curtailing the rights of others.  I'm all in favor of leadership offering recommendations, but it's up to "We the People" to individually decide if we want to follow those recommendations and/or give our business to those that don't.  The government should step in when a company that is the only option refuses to follow recommendations, but that involvement should include anti-trust lawsuit, and providing other options temporarily.  Again, only in cases where a company is the only option.  I.e. if there is only one grocery store in town and that grocery store refuses to take special measures to keep it clean, the government should step in and supply a different option for the residents of that area until competition can be brought into the area.


For the record, even though I'm taking this seriously and going out less, it's my opinion that this has been blown way out of proportion.  252,758 deaths worldwide (517 new deaths today) compared to other causes of death:

• 582,373 from HIV/AIDS
• 2,845,226 from cancer
• 371,497 from suicide
• 2,633,265 children under 5 years old
• 339,813 from malaria
• 866,469 by alcohol
• 1,731,853 from smoking
• 467,656 traffic accidents

Death is an inevitable part of life.  The amount of resources we're throwing at this... we could use some of that energy elsewhere.