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shadowkatReading for pleasure sort of
Started listening to Barack Obama's audio book A Promised Land - he has a good reading voice. Although listening to it, I've begun to understand why he turned off a lot of working class folks. He clearly came from an upper middle class background, and is rather wealthy. With vacations to Hawaii and Africa. Also went to a private school, and to Harvard Law School. In short - well-connected, and seems somewhat oblivious to this. Not quite realizing that he was able to do things that many aren't.
That said, it's fascinating, and he makes an excellent point about racial inequalities, and the fact that he had no idea he'd get elected.
Other things, I'm reading? X-men comics, which are not superhero comics. A lot of folks think they are. They aren't. The comic I'm reading now is X-Factor - ie. X-Factor Investigations. It's a group of mutants investigating the deaths or what happened to other mutants - in order to determine, if they are actually dead, why they are dead, and if they should be resurrected. In the world-building, they've found a way to resurrect all dead mutants. If a mutant dies, they get reborn, and their personality/memories, etc is put back into their bodies. The book examines what that means, and whether it's a good idea. And has a kind of rag-tag group investigating it. The rag-tag group doesn't wear costumes. In addition the members are pretty much LGBTA. X-men is heavy LGBTA.
There's also nice little sidebars of written comedy - such as an advertisement regarding their investigation agency. I swear you've not seen any comic quite like these - they have paragraphs of prose, charts, diagrams, etc. It's heavy on the world-building and speculative sci-fi, and low on the staid superhero crap. I continue to be impressed. There is character building and relationships - but the focus is more on the less traditional ones.
Reading X-men comics is a bit like reading published slash fanfic with pictures!
I put most of that behind a cut, because I know not everyone likes comics. Everyone has their line in the sand regarding pop culture. Mine is video, board and role playing games - the appeal is completely lost on me. So I get it.
Watching on television
Watched Happiest Season on Hulu last night. Took me a while to find it. I thought it was on either Netflix or Amazon Prime, no, it's on Hulu.
It is good. Much better than "The Family Stone" which kind of tackles the exact same subject matter - just not quite as well. Granted Stone is dated, it was released in the early 1990s. Happiest was released this year.
I loved it. It was funny without being cringe-inducing. Highly recommend. Skip Family Stone and watch this one instead.
It's similar to Family Stone, except it features a lesbian relationship. Mary Steenbergen is adorable, and Victor Gaber stars as the father. Kristen Stewart plays half of the lesbian couple or is in the Sarah Jessica Parker role of the interloper.
Much better effort, kind of does everything right that Family Stone did wrong.
Other things
Irritable today. Period started after 87 days. But guess what? No thyroid issues. It's officially perimenopause going into actual menopause. I'm at 30 hormonally, the cut off is 40, which means I'm just short of it. Height of fertility and ovaluation is in the single digits. When you are in the upper digits, you aren't really ovaluating any longer. In short? My child bearing years are at an end. It's not a problem - I grieved in my thirties and early forties. Now, I'm at peace with the whole thing. Once you pass fifty, you kind of feel relieved and stop caring.
Took a walk to the grocery store after work. Picked up a few things. Came home. It was cool, but not too cold. I wore a light down jacket. Sky was blue with scant clouds. Nice evening for a walk.
New York vs. the Corona Virus
Governor came on with Dr. Fauci - basically to have Dr. Fauci reiterate that the Governor is doing all the right things. And to back up the Governor's game plan. They spent twenty minutes patting each other on the back. The Governor's birthday was yesterday, apparently.
Fauci made it clear that the current spike in cases is NOT Thanksgiving, but actually the weeks before. There's a two week lag from the point of exposure. We shouldn't see the Thanksgiving cases until the start of next week, which leads into the Christmas rush, which means the two surges will collide, and unless we mitigate the situation soon - January is going to be a very dark time in our country and world.
Yep. Staten Island right now has the highest death rate in the state, according to the Governor. Who ranted about the police office who was run over by a bar/restaurant owner - when the press asked him what he thought about it. [Shout out to friends in Staten Island? Hope you are all okay? Please stay safe.]
Western, New York (basically Erie County, Buffalo and Rochester) have the highest number of cases - at 7%. A flip from the spring. Still, NY is lower than most everyone else. The only places lower than NY are Vermont, Main, and Hawaii. I'm beginning to think I should just move to either Main, Vermont or Hawaii when I retire. You'd think Alaska would be safe, but Alaska is stupid.
Per the Governor's email, which is also a summary of the briefing.
I was honored to have Dr. Anthony Fauci join us at today's COVID briefing. I asked Dr. Fauci when we might see a peak in the expected COVID spread. He thinks that the effect of Thanksgiving will likely become clearer in the coming days and that with Christmas and Hanukkah coming up, we could see a "surge upon a surge." "Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a very dark time for us," he warned.
In order to manage hospital capacity during this expected surge, New York State will begin implementing our "surge and flex" protocol. As part of this strategy, all hospitals must begin expanding their bed capacity by 25 percent. Hospital systems must also balance patient loads within their system to make sure no one hospital is overstressed. (In Spring, there was an issue with individual hospital overload, but not system-wide overload.)
As we approach the height of the holiday season, we are prepared. Make sure you are too. Please continue to follow our health guidelines and act with caution.
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. Total COVID hospitalizations rose to 4,602. Of the 152,287 tests reported yesterday, 7,302, or 4.79 percent, were positive. There were 872 patients in ICU yesterday, up 22 from the previous day. Of them, 477 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 80 New Yorkers to the virus.
2. We are calling on all retired doctors and nurses to return to service if they are able to do so. Hospitals were previously asked to identify retired staff as part of New York's COVID Winter Plan in order to help avoid or mitigate any potential staffing shortage. The State will automatically renew registrations at no cost to help streamline the process.
3. Regions that reach "critical hospital capacity" will be designated as a Red Zone under New York's micro-cluster strategy. Critical hospital capacity is defined as 90 percent of hospital capacity (in other words, 90 percent full). Following the implementation of the State's "surge and flex" protocol, if a region's 7-day average hospitalization growth rate shows that the region will reach 90 percent hospital capacity within the next three weeks, the region will become a Red Zone.
4. Additional restrictions will be applied to indoor dining if hospitalization rates don't stabilize in the next five days. If the hospitalization rate does not stabilize in New York City in the next five days, indoor dining will be suspended; if the rate does not stabilize in regions outside New York City, capacity restrictions will be reduced to 25 percent.
5. The Finger Lakes region currently has the highest percentage of hospitalizations. The Finger Lakes, where Rochester is located, is followed by Western New York and Central New York. In a reversal from Spring, we now have lower rates of hospitalizations as a percentage of population downstate than we do upstate.
In other words, they are going back to the protocols they put in place in April and May, in preparation for the surge. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst approach.
Family
Had a lovely conversation with my niece tonight, who truly is the child of my heart. Every time I speak with her - I feel as if I'm speaking with a kindred spirit, someone who speaks my language and gets me. It's an astonishing gift that never fails to surprise me. (I can't have any of my own children, someting I came to grips with long ago - in part by choice, in part by circumstance - it just never came to pass and the opportunity never arose. But through my brother, I've managed to connect with a child at an early stage - and on an intellectual and spiritual level, which for me, is more than I ever expected or could have hoped for. I am more than grateful for this small gift.)
She's pursuing international human rights law as a field. And taking courses, I'd love to take. And doing a project on institutional racism - via incarceration, with a map of the system of the incarcerated racism. Also with a paper on the effect of global capitalism on racism and societal inequalities. (I'm not sure I got the titles right - but they are wickedly cool.) AND, she's taking courses next semester from a Nigerian woman on Introduction to Societial Racism and Critical Studies in Systematic Racism. I'm so proud of her. Her photography project is going to be abandoned buildings in upstate NY.
Her parents and my mother are disappointed that she's not becoming an astrophysicist or botanist. Or a scientist. I'm oddly not. I did however ask her about it - because last year at this time she told me she wanted to take physics to see how the world worked. But figured out after taking calculus, and the pandemic hit, that physics wouldn't tell her that - it just told her how people thought it worked, and was a construct. While sociology did give her more insight in how things worked around her, and was far more relevant to her life and world.
I suggested she read "How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahm Kendi". To give it a shot. Also recommended "Disclosure" to her - about the misrepresentation of transgender through media.
Oh, I so adore my niece. She truly is the love of my life. Which I've told her pretty much since she was six years of age. With my niece, I experienced true unconditional love. I don't require anything from her. I just feel for her pure love. It's a lovely thing.
Started listening to Barack Obama's audio book A Promised Land - he has a good reading voice. Although listening to it, I've begun to understand why he turned off a lot of working class folks. He clearly came from an upper middle class background, and is rather wealthy. With vacations to Hawaii and Africa. Also went to a private school, and to Harvard Law School. In short - well-connected, and seems somewhat oblivious to this. Not quite realizing that he was able to do things that many aren't.
That said, it's fascinating, and he makes an excellent point about racial inequalities, and the fact that he had no idea he'd get elected.
Other things, I'm reading? X-men comics, which are not superhero comics. A lot of folks think they are. They aren't. The comic I'm reading now is X-Factor - ie. X-Factor Investigations. It's a group of mutants investigating the deaths or what happened to other mutants - in order to determine, if they are actually dead, why they are dead, and if they should be resurrected. In the world-building, they've found a way to resurrect all dead mutants. If a mutant dies, they get reborn, and their personality/memories, etc is put back into their bodies. The book examines what that means, and whether it's a good idea. And has a kind of rag-tag group investigating it. The rag-tag group doesn't wear costumes. In addition the members are pretty much LGBTA. X-men is heavy LGBTA.
There's also nice little sidebars of written comedy - such as an advertisement regarding their investigation agency. I swear you've not seen any comic quite like these - they have paragraphs of prose, charts, diagrams, etc. It's heavy on the world-building and speculative sci-fi, and low on the staid superhero crap. I continue to be impressed. There is character building and relationships - but the focus is more on the less traditional ones.
Reading X-men comics is a bit like reading published slash fanfic with pictures!
I put most of that behind a cut, because I know not everyone likes comics. Everyone has their line in the sand regarding pop culture. Mine is video, board and role playing games - the appeal is completely lost on me. So I get it.
Watching on television
Watched Happiest Season on Hulu last night. Took me a while to find it. I thought it was on either Netflix or Amazon Prime, no, it's on Hulu.
It is good. Much better than "The Family Stone" which kind of tackles the exact same subject matter - just not quite as well. Granted Stone is dated, it was released in the early 1990s. Happiest was released this year.
I loved it. It was funny without being cringe-inducing. Highly recommend. Skip Family Stone and watch this one instead.
It's similar to Family Stone, except it features a lesbian relationship. Mary Steenbergen is adorable, and Victor Gaber stars as the father. Kristen Stewart plays half of the lesbian couple or is in the Sarah Jessica Parker role of the interloper.
Much better effort, kind of does everything right that Family Stone did wrong.
Other things
Irritable today. Period started after 87 days. But guess what? No thyroid issues. It's officially perimenopause going into actual menopause. I'm at 30 hormonally, the cut off is 40, which means I'm just short of it. Height of fertility and ovaluation is in the single digits. When you are in the upper digits, you aren't really ovaluating any longer. In short? My child bearing years are at an end. It's not a problem - I grieved in my thirties and early forties. Now, I'm at peace with the whole thing. Once you pass fifty, you kind of feel relieved and stop caring.
Took a walk to the grocery store after work. Picked up a few things. Came home. It was cool, but not too cold. I wore a light down jacket. Sky was blue with scant clouds. Nice evening for a walk.
New York vs. the Corona Virus
Governor came on with Dr. Fauci - basically to have Dr. Fauci reiterate that the Governor is doing all the right things. And to back up the Governor's game plan. They spent twenty minutes patting each other on the back. The Governor's birthday was yesterday, apparently.
Fauci made it clear that the current spike in cases is NOT Thanksgiving, but actually the weeks before. There's a two week lag from the point of exposure. We shouldn't see the Thanksgiving cases until the start of next week, which leads into the Christmas rush, which means the two surges will collide, and unless we mitigate the situation soon - January is going to be a very dark time in our country and world.
Yep. Staten Island right now has the highest death rate in the state, according to the Governor. Who ranted about the police office who was run over by a bar/restaurant owner - when the press asked him what he thought about it. [Shout out to friends in Staten Island? Hope you are all okay? Please stay safe.]
Western, New York (basically Erie County, Buffalo and Rochester) have the highest number of cases - at 7%. A flip from the spring. Still, NY is lower than most everyone else. The only places lower than NY are Vermont, Main, and Hawaii. I'm beginning to think I should just move to either Main, Vermont or Hawaii when I retire. You'd think Alaska would be safe, but Alaska is stupid.
Per the Governor's email, which is also a summary of the briefing.
I was honored to have Dr. Anthony Fauci join us at today's COVID briefing. I asked Dr. Fauci when we might see a peak in the expected COVID spread. He thinks that the effect of Thanksgiving will likely become clearer in the coming days and that with Christmas and Hanukkah coming up, we could see a "surge upon a surge." "Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a very dark time for us," he warned.
In order to manage hospital capacity during this expected surge, New York State will begin implementing our "surge and flex" protocol. As part of this strategy, all hospitals must begin expanding their bed capacity by 25 percent. Hospital systems must also balance patient loads within their system to make sure no one hospital is overstressed. (In Spring, there was an issue with individual hospital overload, but not system-wide overload.)
As we approach the height of the holiday season, we are prepared. Make sure you are too. Please continue to follow our health guidelines and act with caution.
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. Total COVID hospitalizations rose to 4,602. Of the 152,287 tests reported yesterday, 7,302, or 4.79 percent, were positive. There were 872 patients in ICU yesterday, up 22 from the previous day. Of them, 477 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 80 New Yorkers to the virus.
2. We are calling on all retired doctors and nurses to return to service if they are able to do so. Hospitals were previously asked to identify retired staff as part of New York's COVID Winter Plan in order to help avoid or mitigate any potential staffing shortage. The State will automatically renew registrations at no cost to help streamline the process.
3. Regions that reach "critical hospital capacity" will be designated as a Red Zone under New York's micro-cluster strategy. Critical hospital capacity is defined as 90 percent of hospital capacity (in other words, 90 percent full). Following the implementation of the State's "surge and flex" protocol, if a region's 7-day average hospitalization growth rate shows that the region will reach 90 percent hospital capacity within the next three weeks, the region will become a Red Zone.
4. Additional restrictions will be applied to indoor dining if hospitalization rates don't stabilize in the next five days. If the hospitalization rate does not stabilize in New York City in the next five days, indoor dining will be suspended; if the rate does not stabilize in regions outside New York City, capacity restrictions will be reduced to 25 percent.
5. The Finger Lakes region currently has the highest percentage of hospitalizations. The Finger Lakes, where Rochester is located, is followed by Western New York and Central New York. In a reversal from Spring, we now have lower rates of hospitalizations as a percentage of population downstate than we do upstate.
In other words, they are going back to the protocols they put in place in April and May, in preparation for the surge. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst approach.
Family
Had a lovely conversation with my niece tonight, who truly is the child of my heart. Every time I speak with her - I feel as if I'm speaking with a kindred spirit, someone who speaks my language and gets me. It's an astonishing gift that never fails to surprise me. (I can't have any of my own children, someting I came to grips with long ago - in part by choice, in part by circumstance - it just never came to pass and the opportunity never arose. But through my brother, I've managed to connect with a child at an early stage - and on an intellectual and spiritual level, which for me, is more than I ever expected or could have hoped for. I am more than grateful for this small gift.)
She's pursuing international human rights law as a field. And taking courses, I'd love to take. And doing a project on institutional racism - via incarceration, with a map of the system of the incarcerated racism. Also with a paper on the effect of global capitalism on racism and societal inequalities. (I'm not sure I got the titles right - but they are wickedly cool.) AND, she's taking courses next semester from a Nigerian woman on Introduction to Societial Racism and Critical Studies in Systematic Racism. I'm so proud of her. Her photography project is going to be abandoned buildings in upstate NY.
Her parents and my mother are disappointed that she's not becoming an astrophysicist or botanist. Or a scientist. I'm oddly not. I did however ask her about it - because last year at this time she told me she wanted to take physics to see how the world worked. But figured out after taking calculus, and the pandemic hit, that physics wouldn't tell her that - it just told her how people thought it worked, and was a construct. While sociology did give her more insight in how things worked around her, and was far more relevant to her life and world.
I suggested she read "How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahm Kendi". To give it a shot. Also recommended "Disclosure" to her - about the misrepresentation of transgender through media.
Oh, I so adore my niece. She truly is the love of my life. Which I've told her pretty much since she was six years of age. With my niece, I experienced true unconditional love. I don't require anything from her. I just feel for her pure love. It's a lovely thing.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-08 09:36 pm (UTC)