Pandemic's Progress (American Style)

1.  Denial:  It's not real, it's not serious, it's not coming here.

2.  Anger:  Don't let those people land, it will make my numbers look bad.

3.   Bargaining:  Hydroxychloroquine.  Oleandrin.  UV light.

4.  Depression:  No more task force briefings.  It is what it is.

5.  Psychosis:  It will all go away like a miracle.

6.  Acceptance, Exhaustion, Boredom:  I'm tired of social distancing, wearing a mask, washing my hands.  Let's try for non-vaccine herd immunity:  Let everyone get infected and whoever survives will be immune (at least for a while).


Kubler-Ross:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Wikipedia - Stages of dying.

• Shock and denial. This is a state of disbelief and numbed feelings.
• Pain and guilt. ...
• Anger and bargaining. ...
• Depression. ...
• The upward turn. ...
• Reconstruction and working through. ...
• Acceptance and hope.

Gospel of Hate

The Gospel of Hate according to John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist of the Fundamentalist Baptist Church.  This being the true word of God and of Jesus Christ our saviour.

High Albedo

The "preference" for light skin seems to be "universal".  At least two explanations have been advanced:  First, that light skin is a class or status signifyer, where lighter means higher class; and second, that the preference is an internalization of European oppression.

The class explanation is elaborated by suggesting that lower classes worked in the fields, thus being exposed to the sun and therefore becoming tanned; whereas people who worked with their minds or were aristocrats could spend their time indoors and therefore would not tan.

The dominance explanation is that through European exploration and colonization, the "darker races" came to associate people with lighter skin tones as being dominant in a relationship -- those with more lethal weapons, the enslavers, believers in inherent superiority.  Since even within groups there is skin tone variability, that variability became incorporated into visual hierarchy which placed some people in a group "above" or in a "superior" position to a darker complexioned person in the same group.

But, both explanations require that people are able to make fine distinctions, to abstract or generalize those distinctions, and codify or symbolize those abstractions.  The ability to make a distinction requires that a person is able to perceive that distinction.  One aspect of perception is the ability to distinguish a "figure" from the "ground".  One way that a figure distinguishes itself from the ground is by its brightness as opposed to the rest of the world -- the stars, the moon and the sun distinguish themselves from the rest of the sky by their constrained brightness, points of light.

A measure of a planet's "brightness" is that of albedo, which is a measure of the proportion of light that a planet reflects.  A planet that reflects no light has an albedo of 0, while a perfect mirror has an albedo of 1.  People can also be said to have albedos, and those with albedos closer to 1 "stand out" more, are "brighter" than people with albedo closer to 0.  Possibly, people with higher albedos claim a greater mind space, are more salient than darker people, and are given more consideration.

Believe Him When He Tells You = Covid Under Control

President Trump said on August 3, when there were about 150,000 cases of the corona virus disease in the US, that the corona virus is under control. 

President Trump has been saying since February 2020, when there were fewer than 100 cases of the disease in the US, that the corona virus is under control. 

He is apparently consistent in his belief that the corona virus pandemic in the US is under control.  Since the corona virus has been under control since it appeared in the US, this must mean that Trump has been controlling the spread of the corona virus in the US; that he has planned that the virus increase and spread, and that the number of deaths grow.  He said it is under control, after all.

Covid-19's Make Room Scenario

People seem unable to keep their hands off each other.

This is the human characteristic that the corona virus exploits to spread itself throughout the human population.

The corona virus does not appear to be deadly for most people, killing only the most vulnerable -- killing only those with certain systemic conditions, some of which are not yet known.

There, currently, is no vaccine that will prevent or cure a covid-19 infection.

This combination of low mortality and the human compulsion to socialize, along an absence of a vaccine, results in the corona virus becoming endemic in the human population.

Then, the virus mutates so that it can more efficiently exploit human resources so that it can grow more virulently so that it begins to kill more people.  Perhaps the virus is a social virus, in the sense that the virus population in a person must reach a certain population at which point it reacts to its own population density and begins responding to that density in a way that kill the host, the infected person. Perhaps it adapts so that the immune system no longer perceives it as a threat, thus allowing the virus population to grow while avoiding detection.

A high mortality rate is not necessarily an evolutionary dead-end, so long as the pool of human that can be infected is sufficiently large.

If this mutation does not occur for a few years, and that the spread of this mutation is facilitated by the presence of the non-mutated strain of the virus (which by this time is endemic) then the mutated strain spreads quickly and widely.

Perhaps the virus is fatal based on the presence of certain widely distributed genetic alleles determining, say, right-handedness or heterosexuality.  As a result, 90% of the population dies, the remainder being immune.

At this point, natural herd immunity has been achieved.

Sexy

You have not been touched until you have been touched by an octopus.

Trump and his Taxes

The New York Times reported that as of 1994, Donald Trump and his siblings engaged in massive tax evasion and fraud.

Why does the media and the IRS seem to believe that all of this evasion and fraud stopped after 1994?

Significance of Provenance

The painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, known as "Salvator Mundi" is valued at $450 Million US.  It, the painting aka "Salvator Munid", was earlier valued at less than $10,000 US because it was believed to have been the product of "a lesser-known artist", and that this painting was a copy of an original painted by Leonardo.






I suppose that just on the basis of age, a fragile object's ability to remain in existence for over 500-years, that object -- like a painting -- has some value, just because it was able to survive, like less than $10,000.

Why would its monetary value increase by 45,000,000% just because people decided that somebody else painted it?

Provenance matters that much?

At this point, the picture is no longer just a picture, but rather a stand-in, more than a stand-in, a communion wafer of the artist themself. 

A provenance infuses that wafer, painting, with the sprit of the person who painted it.  But this spirit only resides in the original, apparently infused into the oak backing and linseed oil and powdered ochre, etc., that even the highest quality digital 3-D copy using identical materials, lacks the material or spiritual or metaphysical spirit that infuses the original, conveyed through the artist's participation into the creation.

Maybe part of the value of art has something to do with love and worship. 

The doodles of John Lennon and Kurt Vonnegut would fetch a price on the art market considerably more than that of some random child, no matter how amusing and spontaneous, because the child is not John Lennon or Kurt Vonnegut.  But that it was done by a young child, that it is as good, and it is unique, why shouldn't it be worth even more?

Proclaiming your membership in a dominance hierarchy?

Does this mean that you're a worshiper, or could it mean that you are at the top of the hierarchy because you can afford it, or both, even?

Trump's Worst Nightmare

By his own actions to sabotage the presidential elections through voter suppression and voting obstruction, which may result in a president not being selected by January 20, 2021, Donald Trump is ensuring that, according provisions in the Constitution, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, will be declared President, according to Lawrence Tribe.