Five million cases

got to be thinking that if this had been a normal year I would have spent last week in Hong Kong to attend another International Handbell Symposium. I’ve attended 13 such events in USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Britain. This would have been the first in Hong Kong. They’re held every other year. But not this year. The event was actually canceled last November because of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. The organizers figured they couldn't keep participants safe.

Turns out protests in Hong Kong are not the problem, alas, because of a new anti protest law imposed from China. But the Symposium would have been canceled anyway due to the virus. Or America’s participation would have been canceled.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is there aren’t the usual markers of passage of time (at least not in my house). In the last five months I’ve watched the weather warm up, the forsythia bloom, and the day lilies bloom and pass. But there haven’t been the usual human markers of time. No Palm Sunday and Easter, no Memorial Day, no Independence Day, no summer travel, and there won’t be a Labor Day. My rehearsal and performance season didn’t end in May and won’t begin in September. There has just been a long procession of similar days.

Which, compared to actually getting sick from the virus, I’ll gladly accept.



About that virus … The US has passed five million cases, more than a quarter of the cases around the world. The US death count has passed 163K.



I had written about the actions the nasty guy took on Friday so he could look like he is Doing Something. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos says the whole effort has fallen flat. His efforts either didn’t actually accomplish much (especially compared to the need), or did things the country doesn’t want done (such as mess with Social Security funding). Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put out a joint statement. McCarter quotes it:

“For instance, not only does the President’s announcement not actually extend the eviction moratorium, it provides no assistance to help pay the rent, which will only leave desperate families to watch their debt pile higher. Instead of passing a bill, now President Trump is cutting families’ unemployment benefits and pushing states further into budget crises, forcing them to make devastating cuts to life-or-death services.”

Trump's memos “do nothing to increase testing, nothing to reopen schools, nothing to put food on the table for hungry families, nothing to prevent heroes being laid off across state and local government, nothing to protect the Postal Service or the integrity of our elections, nothing on many critical needs of the American people,” they wrote.

I had written about Hannah Watters, a student at North Paulding High School in Georgia, who was suspended for posting a video of the crowded halls of her schools showing few students with masks. Marissa Higgins of Kos has an update on the story. Watters was right to be concerned. Six students and three staff have tested positive. The school has been closed for in-person classes for two days so it can be disinfected.

The good news is Watters was proven right and the school reinstated her along with removing the suspension from her record. The bad news is that she’s been getting threatening messages.



Ancestry.com is one of the big genealogy research websites. Though I don’t use it (I can do a lot of research through the free Family Search) I have a cousin who does, which means I’m probably in Ancestry somewhere. Reuters reported that Blackstone is to acquire Ancestry for $4.7 billion. Who knew that genealogy research was so valuable? Well, I sort of do – I’ve heard that genealogy research accounts for the second highest use of the internet (first place is porn).

The notice of the sale prompted Marquita Harris to tweet:

Hi. The Trump-supporting company that owns Motel 6, a chain that illegally sold its guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a warrant, just bought our DNA.

A situation like this is one reason why I haven’t done a genealogical DNA test.



Nate Silver is the head of the stats crunching sites FiveThirtyEight. He and his team have been forecasting elections for a while now (though got 2016 wrong). He has now put a disclaimer in the current forecast, which includes this sentence:

It does not account for the possibility of extraconstitutional shenanigans by Trump or by anyone else, such as trying to prevent mail ballots from being counted.

I don’t think electoral fraud, otherwise known as treason, should be called “shenanigans.” At least Silver is talking about it.



I heard that Belarus had an election and the current despot (and Putin disciple) won by a landslide. Shortly after that the internet there went dark. But that didn’t stop protesters. Nina Jankowicz tweeted about peaceful protesters demanding votes be counted accurately. In one video they see the opposition candidate got 90% of the vote. Even though they were peaceful many were beaten.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

We need to be paying attention to what is happening in Belarus, both to give them support and to prepare ourselves for November.

A laugh for today – a monkey gets a gift.