![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat
It's not doing anything now, however. We appear to have a lull. Unclear if it has stopped.
One of the bonuses of working for a major transportation agency, is I get about twenty emails on the winter storm.
Email #1 : Winter Storm Warning - State of Emergency. All non-essential business and work halted and should stay home. Police, Fire and transportation workers are included in that and should come into work unless otherwise notified.
ME: I think you meant excluded? Or Are Not included? But okay. Someone didn't edit their email - which they sent out twice.
Email #2 : Everyone who doesn't need to go to construction site - stay home and work remotely. Repeat, stay home and work remotely.
Email #3: If you don't need to be here, and can work from home, do so.
Email #4: There's no vaccines today. Stay home.
Email #5: The subways are closing at 2, the trains will stop around 2:30-3:30, but buses are still operational.
Email #6 : Repeat, anyone who doesn't have to come in - stay home. We know you are essential, but if you can work from home remotely - please do so.
Plus side, less idiots gallivanting about for no good reason.
I got each of those emails in triplicate. And to all three email sites. Plus I got the alerts that schools were closed, testing was closed, vaccines were closed, and transit was shutting down. On the news they stated that some people didn't get the message and I thought - are you on a total news blockage or something? How is that even possible?
I've no idea how much snow I got. Right now, folks are saying anywhere between 9-15 inches fell. We're getting about 2-4 more inches more, plus potentially more snow tomorrow. It's a nor'easter they hang about until they get tired or bored. But the worst is over, so not much more expected. (Apparently the last one was in 2016 - which was when they shut down the city and I couldn't get home, there were bad ones after that - but with varying results.)
I installed my new printer today - for phone and computer. So if I have to, I can print stuff off. I got it because I may need to print off any appointment notices I get for the vaccine. I also may need to forward to my own email account - because my crazy org's administrator won't let me use the home printer in connection to Teams and One Drive.
Its an HP Tango, wireless, easy to transport, and has an inkjet delivery service. Does up to 300 pages, I only need 150. I'm not doing that much printing.
The Governor vs. the News Media
Lately the news media has decided it doesn't like our erstwhile Governor all that much and has gone on the attack. The only one that I'm kind of paying attention to - because it's disconcerting, and also classic Cuomo, is his decision to take over the vaccine effort from the public health system and authorities, and do it himself through the hospitals. That was a major mistake. He doesn't trust his own health officials, apparently.
The reporters are worried.
The other one - I'm kind of skeptical about regarding the reporters - the first is their claim that Cuomo didn't care about the people who died in the nursing homes. He did. And that was complicated. I watched those briefings, and read about it, blaming him - shifts the focus from the people managing and running the nursing homes.
The reporting on the nursing homes has been less than clear.
Cuomo has always been a touch problematic - he has a huge ego, is a touch on the arrogant side, very competitive, and a control freak. Also he thinks he needs to fix things - that don't need fixing. He's created a mess at crazy company - to the point that people in crazy company want to kick him. OTOH - he was very useful in the early days of the pandemic and did manage to push various things forward. If this had been a short term deal - it would have been fine, but it wasn't. And the cracks are beginning to show.
"Morale at the New York State Health Department has plunged during the pandemic and nine top officials have quit in recent months — including the deputy commissioner for public health and the director of its bureau of communicable disease control.
People inside the department told my colleagues J. David Goodman, Joseph Goldstein and Jesse McKinley that senior health officials have felt sidelined or treated disrespectfully, and the focus of their concern was Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has seized control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials.
A prime example is the vaccine rollout. Mr. Cuomo blindsided health officials when he cast aside longstanding State Department of Health plans and instead adopted an approach that relied on large hospital systems to vaccinate people. (So far, the vaccine rollout in New York has been troubled and delayed, although inoculation rates have picked up in recent days.) Often, health department officials would hear about major changes to pandemic policy only after Mr. Cuomo announced them at news conferences, and then asked health experts to match their guidance to the announcements.
“When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Friday, referring to scientific expertise at all levels of government during the pandemic. “Because I don’t. Because I don’t.”
Comments like these reflect a rift that has existed between elected officials and career heath experts throughout the pandemic. Former President Donald J. Trump warred publicly with Dr. Anthony Fauci and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and across the country, public health officials have resigned in large numbers as they have been vilified or ignored.
I don't know what to think. It's hard to know who to trust any more. Which is problematic in of itself these days.
They are also trying to fight vaccine fraud, from the Governor's newsletter:
Reminder to beware of COVID vaccination fraud. To help report vaccination fraud or scams across the State, New York established a hotline that New Yorkers can call to report fraudulent vaccinations. It is a red flag if anyone is promising you the vaccine in exchange for payment. To report suspected vaccine fraud, New Yorkers can call 1-833-VAX-SCAM (1-833-829-7226) or email STOPVAXFRAUD@health.ny.gov.
It was snowing again for a bit, but now not so much. Below is an earlier pic of the storm. I tried to take a photo of the cardinals that were flying around the back yard, but, alas, they are photo shy.
Alas, Burma now Myanmar ended up with a military coup, and has been returned to military rule - because they've decided there was voter fraud in the November elections. (Remind you of anything? It should considering the US President and various members of the Republican Party attempted the same thing - the difference is our military doesn't want an authoritarian/dictatorship ruled by the military. They've spent too many years fighting other countries who did that. It would be a tad hypocritical to do it themselves. Good to know our military isn't run by power-mad hypocrites, isn't it?)
The takeover this morning, during which the country’s civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was detained, returns Myanmar to full military rule after just five years of quasi-democracy.
A military television network announced a one-year state of emergency, with ultimate authority transferred to the army chief. The military said extreme steps were necessary because of what it labeled voter fraud in elections in November.
Myanmar had been celebrated as a rare case in which the military, which had been in power since 1962, handed over some power to civilians after Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won elections. Her detention brought an abrupt end to the theory that she might strike a workable balance between civilian and military power.
For the first time in four or five years, I'm watching White House briefings again.
And..sigh, the weather service is calling this a lowly "Nor-Easter" not a blizzard. What's the difference? I don't know. Just that Nor-Easter's tend to circle around and around until they finally get bored or run out of steam and move on.
Other news..
*For this spaceflight, you don’t need a $55 million ticket.
Last week, we got word that three private citizens will each pay that price for an eight-day trip to the International Space Station as soon as next year.
Today, the 37-year-old billionaire Jared Isaacman, above, announced he would raffle off a seat on a separate private SpaceX flight for a three- or four-day trip in October.
He is giving two of the seats to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, which treats children at no charge and develops cures for childhood cancers. One of those seats will go to a frontline health care worker at St. Jude.
Another seat will be raffled off to someone at random, with the goal of raising at least $200 million for St. Jude. You do not need to donate to enter, but each dollar donated counts as 10 entries.
[Anyone else feel like they are trapped in a Philip K Dick science fiction novel and can't get out?]
*And Tony Bennett, the 94-year-old singer whose popularity saw a resurgence over the past decade, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. His symptoms first appeared in 2015.
“Life is a gift — even with Alzheimer’s,” Bennett tweeted this morning.
I don't know. They also conducted a study and apparently a writing test can help them determine if people will get get Alzheimers.
I remain skeptical. Why? The brain is unique to everyone. And there are other reasons someone may not respond well to that writing test.
Alzheimers affects everyone differently. And no one has the same life. My father has a form that is physically debilitating that is making his quality of life increasingly difficult. Also he hallucinates. Not everyone with Alzheimers does. My father's is more of a form of dementia.
I've seen three different forms or types of dementia/senility to date.
My grandfather, my grandmother, and now my father. None were the same. Nor did any of them have the same cause or effect the people the same way.
Neurology - I've discovered over time is an inexact science. With lots of variables.
And in regards to Alzheimers? Everyone thinks they are an expert. They aren't. And they want to give us advice, it's often wrong. You can't generalize about it. I'm learning to just listen to my mother, and ask how can I help.
Family
Mother: I've decided to cancel the evening home health care aid.
ME: Oh? Why? Don't you need them?
Mother: Well, no, I think I can handle it. I have a commode next to my bed now. And I was able to get up this morning. Besides the one last night was very inefficient.
Me: How so?
Mother: Well for one thing she was supposed to show up at 8, but didn't come until 9:15, which was okay, I guess. But then when I had to get up in the night at 2 - she took a while and didn't seem to really know how to help. And later at 5 AM, she didn't come at all. I called, and called, then I waited, then...well, I heard snoring. She'd fallen asleep.
Me: What did you do?
Mother: I got up, got to the bathroom, got dressed, and discovered..that your Aunt K didn't send the shoes your brother got your father for Christmas like I asked. Making me wonder what he was wearing in the Preston. Sandals?
ME: Wait...why didn't you wake up the home health care aid?
Mother: I thought I'd let her sleep. I gathered a few things for your father and sent them over with someone to the Preston.
Me: How did Aunt K get the shoes wrong?
Mother: I don't think she knew? I've no idea what she picked for him. I'm thinking the sandals. Oh by the way, Karen asked me if my kids were okay with me cancelling the night time home health care aid and what they thought about it.
ME: What did you tell her?
Mother: That my kids go along with whatever I decide.
Me: Well, it's not like we have much choice in the matter -
Mother: Oh you do, but you just trust me...{pause} I mentioned this to your brother and he said, "well, not entirely..."
Me: I'll try not to worry about you mother.
Mother: You better not, it does no good. I don't worry about you because I can't do anything...(she lectures me on the foils of worrying for ten minutes...this from a woman who could teach a course on worrying and drove me up the wall with it as a kid).
Good night.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-02 09:19 pm (UTC)I tend to agree you with you there. A good nursing home is a rare thing and there's very little concerted public effort to change them, despite the fact that so many people will end up there.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-03 03:55 am (UTC)What a lot of people don't get - is how state and federal regulatory agencies work. They can only correct what they've been made aware of - and there's lots of regulations, red tape, and forms to fill out and maneuver around. And the reason that's the case is no one agrees on anything.
It does however work - at times, and can work very well - if you have the right people in place.
And, they have to deal with fraud, and ways people try to work the system. A nursing home can on its face seem ideal - you often don't see the problems until you dig under the surface. My mother put hers in an assisted care living facility - only to have to move her when she ran into issues.
It was a lovely facility, she had a nice room and area to congregate. But she also had dementia, and they couldn't handle that - and they were over-worked. So mother moved her to another one, and ran into issues there too - but it was hard at times to know.
It's never as clear cut as people like to make it out.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-03 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-03 04:12 pm (UTC)Yep. People don't seem to understand where taxes go? Taxes pay for roads, public transportation, building inspection, bridges, air traffic controllers, airport security, regulation of nursing homes, hospitals, fire departments, regulation of gaming and gamboling, regulations of environment, etc. Along with FEMA, CDC, virus detection, and vaccine development and distribution...
But nooo..."I'd rather control my money and spend it on my pet charities and community needs, while paying money to see the football game or that show or go on that cruise. Wait? I can't. Why? Oh because there's a pandemic. Why? Oh Why is this happening to me?" Let me think.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-03 08:00 pm (UTC)YES!!!!