petersironwood

Snowflake

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, poetry, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

brotherhood, Democracy, fascism, globalism, love, pandemic, peace, plague, poem, poetry, snow, snowflake, truth, UN, USA, world

Snow.

Made of Snowflakes.

Snowflakes.

Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

Everyone comments: “Every snowflake’s different.”

It’s a cliché.

However amazing that may be,

Amazing still is every snowflake’s sixfold symmetry.

“What’s so special about that,” you say.

How does the three millionth molecule out near northeast

Know what the three millionth molecule out near southwest

Is doing?

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

I’ve a story to explain:

Once upon a time,

Everything was One.

If truth be told,

It was a boring too much One of Oneness.

So,

As matter is wont,

We Big-Banged Ourselves into this far-flung Universe:

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A multi-colored,

Multi-facetted

Extravaganza of galaxies.

And yet,

We (not just you and me)

We (meaning all of existence)

Seek that underlying, undying,

Unification.

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

Hence,

The mystery of gravity.

(Why else would everything

In the universe be attracted to everything else?)

In between the ting and tang of bells;

In between the yin and yang of all;

In between the sweetness of the notes of song;

In between this moment and the

Next…

In all those in-betweens we glimpse:

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Reality.

Universality.

We are all One.

And always shall be.

So quell your fears of Worst.

Slake your thirst.

Let the snowflakes,

Fall, fall, and melt upon your tongue.

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Wars? Scars?

Hate? Fear?

What chance do they have

In the longest run of all who run?

Division is but the ignorance of too few years

Brewed into flat, stale, tasteless beers.

Routed and touted as though it were a fine wine

Touched by Heaven’s Gate – a touch divine.

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com

The Mad King shatters all of US

And all the US of US

He throws each one of us

Under his failing falling galling bus.

The roads all darken with the dirt and blood and salt.

man in black jacket and blue denim jeans standing in front of yellow bus

Photo by Zichuan Han on Pexels.com

“It’s not my fault! It’s all your fault!

And you and you and you and you — you all must lose.

And I will lie and check and slay all day.

I sing the electric assault.

I sing it’s time to kill my foes.

I sing it’s time to burn the world!”

And all the while, each snowflake shows,

Each flag unfurled,

Each insult hurled,

Turns the earth a greener hue;

Turns the air a cleaner blue.

In the stillness and the in between,

We now begin to see

That we are we.

Photo by Marlon Schmeiski on Pexels.com

Bound thus together by our common scenes

And bound together by our common genes

We reject the clown’s inept inanity.

We see so clearly now that we are one humanity.

And all the screaming, scheming, double-dealing

Gets rightfully confined to back ward dreaming.

All across the world, humanity is teaming.

This is one large, deadly test

To see if we could see

That we are we is manifest

For all humanity.

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Let snow abound.

Our unity is found.

We very nearly drowned.

Our feet at last are touching ground.

Our voice: at last a singing sound.

Prometheus at last unbound!

Our truth at last is found!

Our world is very clearly round!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

————————————————

The Impossible

Mother’s Day

Index to Pattern Language for Cooperation

What about the Butter Dish?

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, family, health, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 90 Comments

Tags

cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID19, epidemic, pandemic, politics, psychology, Putin, science, treason, USA

What about the Butter Dish?

Photo by kelvin carris on Pexels.com

So, here we are, staying relatively safe by staying home. One of the impacts of never eating out is doing more dishes. We end up washing dishes nearly every day now rather than a couple times a week.

Today, it’s my wife washing the dishes while I gather dishes and dry them. She likes to wash the dishes for the cats nearly every day while I generally wait till they obtain the proper patina of dried food. I think about how tigers drag their dead prey around for a week or more in the hot tropical sun. I think about how the cats eat bugs, plastic, lizards, and each other’s puke so — I’m thinking they’re likely not into the same exact aesthetic as I am. But — hey — if she wants to do cat dishes, fine with me. I go around the house and collect cat dishes.

You may think that I would “know” where the cat dishes are because we only have six white cat dishes for wet food and six aluminum ones for dry food “snacks.” And mainly I do know because the cats generally eat in the same places every day. Tally however, likes to lead me on a bit of a game before she decides exactly where she wants to eat on any give day.

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Luna also likes to switch it up. On the one hand, she likes to socialize with her best (and only) feline friend, Charles Wallace. So, often times, she wants her food put down right beside him. But Charles Wallace, being younger, male, and more aggressive, sometimes steals Luna’s food — sometimes, even before he’s done with his own. Sometimes, Luna therefore prefers me to place the food farther away so she can have more of her meal in peace before Charles Wallace swoops in and starts chomping on it.

I explain to you these details to illustrate that even though gathering the cat dishes is easy, it does require some attentional resources.

What about the butter dish? What does that have to do with anything?

Photo by jamie he on Pexels.com

Patience.

We keep a small human dish with butter in the cupboard so that it’s soft enough to spread on bread, waffles, potatoes, pancakes, or vegetables. When the butter gets used up, I put the butter dish down by some of the cat dishes and let them lick the plate clean. Yes. I do. Once the cats have licked it clean, one of us still washes it by hand and then puts it into a dishwasher whereupon the scalding water will kill any cat germs that might be on the plate.

I leave the butter dish out for two reasons: first, the cats like the butter.

Their tongues are able to lick it very much cleaner than I can manage with, say, a butter knife. So, the second reason is that putting it out for the cats is that it also works for my benefit. It makes the dishes significantly easier to clean. Not just the butter dishes, but all the dishes.

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When I do the dishes, olive oil on a plate easily washes off with soap and water. Butter? No. — It’s like glue, not oil. If a plate has butter on it, it will “contaminate” every other dish that such a plate comes in contact with. It’s amazing how persistent butter is. Even honey and maple syrup come off a plate fairly easily with warm water and soap. But not butter. So, partly I put out the “empty” butter dish for the cats because they will manage to lick nearly every butter molecule — less contamination for the other dishes. And, by the way, it isn’t only the other dishes which are subject to butter contamination. The same goes for my hands. Olive oil washes off easily and if a little stays on my hands, it seems to be absorbed into my skin and help make up for the endless hand washing. Butter, on the other hand, does not feel good on my hands. Your mileage may differ. I don’t like it. It does not feel “clean.”

Anyway, here I am thinking of various things, listening to the news, and gathering up cat dishes. I am mentally counting them as I do so. I don’t want to miss one. Who knows what psychological harm could come to a cat who might be “singled out” by having their dinner presented on a dirty plate when the other five are clean. I come to the last three dishes where Shadow, Molly, and Blaze typically eat and I hand these and the other three to my wife. She takes the six dishes and says, “What about the Butter Dish?”

A seemingly innocent question.

I look down, and I see that indeed, there is a butter dish and that it’s within inches of the spot from whence — just two seconds ago — I had picked up three “cat dishes.”

Photo by Sayantan Kundu on Pexels.com

I am certainly aware that our collective goal is to wash all the dishes. Indeed, most have already been done or loaded into the dishwasher. I well recall that I put the butter dish down there to be licked just a few short hours ago.

I did not, so far as I can recall, look down at the four dishes and think, “Well, let’s see — one butter dish and three cat dishes. But she only asked for cat dishes so I’ll just leave the butter dish alone. No. I did not even see the Butter Dish! It entered no more into my consciousness than the tile floor, the Christmas-themed place matts, or the faux panel behind them. I was looking for — and counting cat dishes. That was how I thought of my tasks.

I recalled a video which was popular for awhile. Perhaps you’ve seen it? It asks you to count the number of basketball passes made by the people in white shirts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

How did you do?

In a previous essay, I talked about how our habits can virtually blind us to what is right in front of us.

https://petersironwood.wordpress.com/2017/02/25/the-invisibility-cloak-of-habit/

In the case of the cat dishes, it wasn’t habit so much as task focus that made me blind to seeing the butter dish. I was busy gathering the cat dishes, listening to the newscast, and — importantly, I think — counting the cat dishes. The butter dish was irrelevant to the task as I had defined it.

Since I was also listening to the newscast, I began to think that this is related to why 40% of Americans don’t seem to care that the mishandling of the pandemic is resulting in tens of thousands of Americans needlessly dying from COVID19. It isn’t that they are doing a bad job of evaluating the behavior of #45. Evaluating his behavior and its effect on America is not viewed as a task.

woman in black dress holding balance scale

Photo by JJ Jordan on Pexels.com

Their task as they see it, is to defend the President and his actions against his “enemies.” He declares people who disagree with him “enemies of the people.” The task of the base, as they see it, is not to question whether the other 60% are “really” enemies. He says they are and so their job is to defend POUTUS against those enemies.

For that task, it doesn’t matter whether he said this would all go away. It doesn’t matter that he said there was plenty of equipment, testing, masks, etc. when it was a lie. Whether it’s 1 American dead or 75,000 dead is irrelevant to defending him. You might see it as quite relevant to whether or not you should be defending him. I think it is. But they don’t. Their task is to defend him no matter what happens.

He says that it will be over soon — and 10,000 people die — the question for them is:
“How can I defend the President?”

He says that we will open back up soon — but there are 25,000 dead — the question for them is: “How can I defend the President?”

If a million Americans die, the question for them will still be: “How can I defend the President?”

The number of dead Americans just keeps going up so thinking about how many dead isn’t only irrelevant to defending #45; it’s counter-productive.

They (the people who still defend him) don’t scan the news or his tweets to evaluate whether they should be defending #45. They listen to the news or his tweets to look for things to say or retweet that will defend #45. Thinking about how many dead Americans there are is completely beside the point!

If it’s early March and there are only a few cases and he says it will go away, they hear that it will go away. Good sound bite! I can use that to defend, they think to themselves.

If it’s mid-March and he says everything will be back to normal by Easter, they hear that and use it to defend #45.

If it’s May and 75,000 Americans are dead, they don’t pay any attention. But if he claims that he’s done a great job, they do pay attention because that is something that they can repeat as a defense.

If he claims that China misled us, they do pay attention because that is something that they can repeat as a defense. If he says we’ll have a vaccine in a few months, they do pay attention because that is something that they can repeat as a defense. It is not their task to decide whether what #45 says is true before they repeat it. They repeat it because it’s pro-45.

If they end up repeating defenses that are inconsistent with each other, what difference does it make? Who cares? They aren’t trying to be consistent or coherent. That’s not their task.

abstract barbed wire black white black and white

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Their task is to defend.

Unfortunately, lies and corruption are a bit like butter. Put butter it in the sink with all the dishes that you wanted to clean and instead, everything gets coated with corruption butter. It is so heavy with corruption that it’s easy to drop plates onto the floor where they smash to bits.

But who cares?

They defenders judge their performance and each other on how well they are repeating the messages of Fox News — not on how many Americans are needlessly dying.

And once you evaluate yourself in terms of how vigorously you defend #45 for a few years, the worse he actually does as POUTUS and the more Americans he kills, it does not become less important for you to defend #45. It becomes even more important.

Now, having killed tens of thousands of Americans needlessly, he has even more enemies and the press is going after him even harder, and liberals think he’s even worse than he was when he was simply stealing taxpayer dollars to funnel them illegally toward the Trump Crime Family or ripping babies away from their mothers.

The rest of America keeps showing them the butter dish. “See? It’s right here. How can you miss it?”

And the base answers: “So? I don’t care. Why are you showing me the stupid butter dish? My job is to gather up and count the cat dishes.”

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

——————————————

At Least he’s our Monster

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

You Bet Your Life

Essays on America: Wednesday

Rejecting Adulthood

A Profound and Utter Failure

Drowning in the Obvious, Denied by the Oblivious

06 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, health, management, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

coronavirus, COVID19, death, Dictatorship, fascism, leaderless, life, pandemic, truth, tyranny

person riding a bicycle during rainy day

Photo by Genaro Servín on Pexels.com

The rain has continued nearly unabated for an unknown interval — perhaps only days, probably weeks, possibly years. Even continuous rain might be more bearable.

No.

Cruelly, there is the slight hint of cessation, a suggestion of passing clouds and possible sunshine. But none of these promises comes to fruition.

Photo by Adam Kontor on Pexels.com

The cottage is seeped with dampness. The rose petals all have fallen. Nettles and thorns clamor at the windows asking for entry, if not for themselves, then surely for their insect pals.

Rugs, clothing, mattresses feel damp to the touch; smell of mold and decay. In the distance, one hears rumblings and senses the blue flash. Between these punctuated blasts, the ever-present murmuring of pattering raindrops like a multitude of questioning voices.

“How did this come to be?” they seem to say.

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“Once, we were a sunny land, a happy band.” Two tall trees toppled, it’s true, but brave deeds followed. And, still the land prospered. But not all deeds in those dark and dreadful days were brave. Oh, no. A few ignoble kings saw not tragedy but opportunity. Opportunity knocks but several times. One must jump at the chances. Take the bull by the horns and consolidate one’s power!

If one has power, does not one have the responsibility to make that power everlasting and absolute?

Riders rode through the range shouting: “dissent is disastrous treason!” Many mechanical minions made waves, intimidated, fooled, lied, and finally hauled Mordor itself to the American shores, the American way of life, the fabric of our once-bright country that yet could be again.

This is the way Democracy dies.
This is the way Democracy dies.

This is the way Democracy dies.
Not with a bang but a wimp-out.

Fiction about real leadership in a series of crises.

The Pandemic Anti-academic

You Bet Your Life.

Rejecting Adulthood

A Lot is Not a Little

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Timeline

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, family, health, poetry, politics, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

coronavirus, COVID19, cruelty, despotism, Dictatorship, fascism, Feedback, life, pandemic, plague, Putin, testing, treason, truth

1/22/2020: 17

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“…totally under control…

“It’s going to be just fine…”

And dandy,

Like dynamite lit

But under a bowl

You don’t see much

If you are such

That has no spine.

Nor half a wit.

Death tastes like candy!

close up photo of woman holding lollipop

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

2/1/2020: 304

“…we pretty much shut it down…”

No need to frown!

We’re the best game in town!

2E9EBFDF-8366-41E3-B9D1-47136A7D029B

2/8/2020: 813

“…so we’re in very good shape…”

I like to rape,

The younger the better!

Epstein, my buddy: quite the jet-setter!

Jeffrey WHO?

Him I barely knew!

He mysteriously died

Before he could squeal

‘Cause we had a deal.

Billy Barr is the best!

He’s on my side!

Kills on request.

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2/22/2020: 2460

“…stock market looking

Very good to me…!”

And books, I’ve been cooking

Ever since I was wee!

Which reminds me of pee!

Which starts with a ’T’

Which stands for Trump

And kissing my rump.

Photo by CDC on Pexels.com

3/8/2020: 3826

“The risk is low!”

And I oughta know!

I’m a genius who’s stable!

(I watch Fox on cable).

I go with my gut!

(Nearly as big as my butt!)

If they die in far places

Why should I care?

Not even white races

Just people to spare.

Here in ‘Merica, we’re still sitting pretty.

Only 22 deaths, it’s a drop in the bucket!

The snowflakes are getting amazingly petty!

But I don’t care and just say “#### it!”

680174EA-5910-4F9B-8C75-C15B3136FB06_1_105_c

3/22/2020: 14,739

Thank goodness for ME!

My ratings are high!

Among my slaves it’s 509

Do not whine!

Do not cry!

Plagues enrich the Crime Family!

E056DBCD-67B8-415B-9ECF-A7DE15F7164F_1_105_c

4/5/2020: 72,535

There’s plenty of testing as you can see!

For everyone willing to bow to ME!

American deaths are sitting quite pretty!

Though some will call for tears and pity.

It’s just a ten K.

It’s AOK!

64AC5B76-C6C3-40D5-A26D-9CB06754678A_4_5005_c

4/19/2020: 167,788

Let’s open up and re-elect!

We can’t have a down-ish DOW!

I’m the ONE the Russians select!

Letting everyone vote is a sacred cow.

Arm yourselves and demand to be free!

To do what I tell you fanatically!

Americans dead? Only 41 thou!

Photo by Erik Karits on Pexels.com

5/3/2020: 246,943

I grade myself: with every A!

And who knows better than brilliant ME!

I dotted each ‘i’ and crossed every ’T’

And jumped at each opportunity

To watch Fox News on my TV

And Marrow-Lago’s? Golf’s place to play!

Photo by Jopwell on Pexels.com

Go drink some bleach!

And crowd on the beach!

We’re falling behind in the USA.

We’re only just now at 68K!

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Come on people! Show your master!

I need an even million dead — and so much faster!

Putin’s telling us all to hurry

Don’t stay home with your chin all furry.

Get those tattoos, massages, and cuts!

If you die it just shows that you had the guts!

To follow “Der Fooler” right over that cliff!

If you don’t like death’s smell,

Then don’t take a whiff.

Stay under my spell

And before this year’s end,

I’ll have met Putin’s quota!

You shouldn’t care even one iota

How many fell or now live in hell.

Family dead or perhaps a dear friend?

Who gives a damn when I’m having such fun!?

My race to dictatorship nearly won!

And when at last all power is mine,

I’ll rewrite history so you will learn,

That it’s fine to torture and great to burn!

I can treat everyone just like swine!

My ego will swell! So all will be well!

Hitler’s reign: a mere thousand years!

More important: his tally of ten million dead!

Vlad and I have work to do,

But our being happy depends on you!

We’ll only be happy when few are fed

And we can feast on trillions of tears!

Shut away your childish fears!

Believe our lies, however absurd.

I’ll abandon you as quick as a Kurd!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

But you’re not allowed to see what’s true!

Or look beyond my invisible hue!

Watch my glitter as you fall down and die

Give “Der Fooler” one last sigh

Love me tender and call me ‘great.’

As you fall and die — but don’t be late!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It’s all a hoax that’s been brought by the left

Who’d open the borders and make you all gay.

Just believe in me and you don’t have to think!

I’ll take your cash and leave you bereft.

I’ll make you work for a dollar a day

While you wallow in filth and smell the sick stink.

But that’s just Donald: me being me!

So know your role; increase that toll!

Help me reach that golden goal!

Let’s destroy democracy!

Let’s fashion a world where I am supreme!

And everyone knows their proper place.

I’ll drink the milk and all of the cream.

But you can be happy that I’ve lived my dream:

When I die — take the whole human race.

Once you’ve given your all and all you have to give

When *I* die — why should anyone live?

Photo by Mike on Pexels.com

Let’s go lackeys and strive for the best!

Make America Great and lead all the rest!

Make America end with a big loud BANG!

Help me sharpen COVID’s brutal FANG!

A million dead at the end of the year!

Me on my throne without shedding a tear!

12/31/2020 (world): <2,000,000

12/31/2020 (USA): >1,000,000

You Bet Your Life!

Abandoning Adulthood

Just Tommy being Tommy!

Donnie Gets a Hamster!

Mother’s Day

02 Saturday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, family, poetry, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

death, life, May, mindfulness, Mother's Day, poem, poetry

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I only have a few days left,

The radio screams;

The television blares;

The spam-mail claims;

I only have a few days left,

To order flowers for Mother’s Day.

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Only Mother,

(Against all the rules of the game,

I thought I knew so well),

Mother

Is dead.

Like Father,

And Grandfather,

And Grandmother,

And it makes me wonder:

How could all these characters

That made up the landscape of my childhood,

The very fabric and the backdrop of my life

Simply walk off stage forever?

Who wrote this script, anyway?

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But that is just ego talking,

Ego that sits like a huge blind egg

Atop a pedestal of its own design.

That is just ego pretending

To be the end-all and the be-all of existence.

In reality, the fabric of life continues;

Rip, repair, rip, repair, rip, repair.

The river of life keeps flowing

Finding another channel where one is blocked.

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

The blood that ran through my parents

Flows through me and my grandchildren

As well as Sir Tulip Tree saluting the morning sun,

And those three awesome wild turkeys strolling beneath;

That humming, zipping dragonfly;

That laughing marigold.

This

Flower is for you, Mother

And

This

Moment

For you and me and all the ancestors

And all the descendants

And

The Now

Of three yellow tulips:

Bulbs brought from Amsterdam

(Where you never journeyed,

Content with my stories and pictures)

Photo by Paul Khlistunov on Pexels.com

This now, I enjoy for all the world,

For Mother,

For Mother’s Day.

The chaotic spiral path of earth will journey my egobody

Away some day too.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

Meanwhile,

Do we not owe it to that host,

That multitude of ancestors

Stretching out behind us into the net of proto-life,

Do we not owe it to them

To watch the golden flowers glow,

As intently as we are able?

Certainly,

That is the attitude of my wise cousins:

Dragonfly, turkey and tree.

Should I do any less?

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

Life is a Dance
The Truth Train

Index to “Pattern Language for Collaboration and Teamwork”

Comes the Reign

John vs. Worrier

02 Saturday May 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, creativity, management, politics, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

anxiety, blind, blizzard, fiction, hope, lost, New England, psychology, self-help, snowstorm, story, winter

snow covered mountain during golden hour

Photo by Stephane Hurbe on Pexels.com

The blizzard had passed; now, calm, serene. Snow glittered on the Boston suburb of Woburn. “Perfect time for a walk,” John thought. Sun played hide and seek as he set off to scale the “mountain” whose summit offered Boston skyline glimpses.

The woods were beautiful, bright and deep. Across the spit of land between marsh and lake, Sunday afternoon, he strode with confidence. Atop the summit, Boston glowing gold in sun.

administration ancient architecture blue sky

Photo by Rakim Davis on Pexels.com

Then, Storm’s other half hit. With vengeance.

Wading waist high through snow drifts, John could hardly see ahead. He’d climbed this hill a hundred times. He knew the way, if only he could see anything beyond white horizontal hordes of sleety flakes; if only he could hear beyond wind howling through his head.

Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

The rain/sleet/hail/snow pelted relentless. John shivered. He felt ice needles trickling down his neck and biting through his gloves.

“Crap. Can’t be more than four miles from home.”

“People have been lost in wilderness, run circles and died within a hundred yards of major highways.”

“Who? Oh, you again. I told you to go away. Anyway, that’s not going to happen to me. This isn’t wilderness anyway. It’s suburban Boston. I know this land. If only I could see….”

Photo by Constantin Dorin Adrian on Pexels.com

“Notice how snows falls into your boots? Note you’re breathing?”

“Whatever. I’m making progress. I’m strong; moving through these chest-high drifts.”

“Progress? A funny term. You’re moving. Toward what though? No sun, no visibility. Towards what?”

“I know where I’m going.”

“Using stellar navigation or solar?”

“Shut up!”

An hour later, home with kids, weather and worrier defeated, John wonders only for the briefest moment if things might have turned out differently. He laughs and Worrier sighs and pulls the lid back in place atop his sarcophagus.

Photo by Matthias Groeneveld on Pexels.com

Index to Essays of 2019

Index to Fiction of 2019

The Blog in Review for 2017

Citizen Soldiers, Part One

The beginning of The Myths of the Veritas. (Stories that explore leadership, empathy, and ethics in times of crisis).

Tales of an American Childhood (Amazon)

Comes the Reign

29 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, politics, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

America, coronavirus, COVID19, Democracy, life, pandemic, politics, treachery, treason, truth, USA

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The rain has continued nearly unabated for an unknown interval — perhaps only days, probably weeks, possibly years. Even continuous rain might be more bearable. Pitter patter, pitter patter, but not of little feet.

No.

Cruelly, there is the slight hint of cessation, a suggestion of passing clouds and possible sunshine. But none of these promises comes to fruition.

Pitter patter. Pitter patter. But not of little feet.

The cottage is seeped with dampness. The rose petals all have fallen. Nettles and thorns clamor at the windows asking for entry, if not for themselves, then surely for their insect pals.

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Pitter patter, pitter patter, but not of little feet.

“How did this come to be?” they seem to say.

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Pitter patter, pitter patter. But not of little feet. Soldiers in the distance, row on row.

If one has power, does not one have the responsibility to make that power everlasting and absolute?

Pitter patter, pitter patter, all the while the golden glitter glows;

Distracts us from what we know; the arctic blow.

Riders rode through the range: “dissent is disastrous treason!” Many mechanical minions made waves, intimidated, fooled, lied, and finally brought Mordor itself to the American shores, the American way of life, the fabric of our once-bright country that yet could be again, melted in the rain.

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The twisted cross of hate

Raised like a toast to celebrate

Our own lobotomy

Courtesy of the false dichotomy.

Pitter patter, pitter patter, but not of innocent feet.
Trample clatter, trample clatter.

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This is the way Democracy dies.
This is the way Democracy dies.

This is the way Democracy dies.
Not with a bang but a wimp-out.

silhouette and grayscale photography of man standing under the rain

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Citizen Soldiers, Part Two

Citizen Soldiers, Part Three

Claude, the Radioman

Trumpism is a new Religion

You Bet Your Life

Essays on America: The Game

The Pandemic Anti-academic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia

Essays on America: OOPS!

29 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, family, health, management, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

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coronavirus, COVID19, Design, Feedback, pandemic, politics, systems thinking, testing, truth

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OOPS!

The basement in the rented Woburn house was not particularly pleasant. Cold, damp, and dark, there were only four small basement windows and even these were cluttered with spider webs. One day, in order to try to make the place marginally more usable for my three small kids, I removed all the spider webs. The next day, the basement was swarming with hornets!

OOPS!

We had an oil burning furnace in that basement. The landlord cautioned me before we even rented it, that a pair of knobs should be used to make sure that the water level in glass vial be kept between two marks. This gauge looked like the gauge in a level.

I glanced at the gauge every so often. Initially, I checked it every day or so. But the level never moved. So, I began checking it every week. But it still never moved. It never seemed to move for two years. One day, I glanced at it, and to my horror, the gauge was almost completely empty.

OOPS!

Now, I was faced with a dilemma. Which of these two knobs was I supposed to turn? There were no labels. There hadn’t been any when I rented the property. Of course, I should have asked the owner more questions during the walk-through. And, then I should have immediately made my own labels. But I hadn’t.

OOPS!

I could not recall which knob would cause the fluid level to rise. I decided to try it. I just opened it a little bit. Nothing. I watched closely. I waited. Nothing. As in the illustration above, there were no marks either on the knobs or on metal behind them. So, I wanted to return the first knob to its initial position. But in my hurry to “fix” the problem, it hadn’t occurred to me to put a little mark on the knob and the background so that I would at least be able to return it to the original position.

OOPS!

Well, okay but it was too late for that now. I waited. Nothing. I turned the first knob back to where I thought it was. The glass was still nearly empty. Was it slightly less empty than it had been? Or was it slightly more empty? I wasn’t really sure. I should have also marked the level very carefully. I didn’t.

OOPS!

So, the glass tube was nearly empty. I did definitely remember that I had been told this was a very dangerous situation! I had tried one knob and it hadn’t seem to do anything. I decided to try the other knob. I turned it a little. Nothing. I waited. Nothing. At this point, the sweat was pouring down the inside of my undershirt. I wasn’t really clear what might happen if I failed. Could the boiler actually blow up? Could it cause a fire? Or would I be lucky and it would just ruin the furnace?

I opened the second knob a bit farther. Nothing. I waited. I opened it a bit farther. Nothing. I opened it a bit farther. Nothing.

Then, suddenly, the vial began to fill. Rapidly! Too rapidly! I quickly turned the second knob back to what I hoped had been its original position. The vial was still filling. Try as I might, I could not get the vial to stop filling!

Bang!!

OOPS!

The glass vial had broken. Luckily I had not been hit by the flying glass. I turned off the furnace and called the owner. Eventually, it was fixed. In a few months, we moved to Westchester, New York.

Perhaps few people have had the exact experience I had with an oil burner, but I suspect almost everyone has travelled to a new place on vacation or a business trip or visiting a friend and decided to take a shower at some point. (Think back to the pre-pandemic days).

If you are in most bathrooms for the first time, you really have no idea how to arrange the knobs for a reasonable shower temperature. If you move the knob(s) and feel the change almost immediately, you can quickly arrange things so that you have a comfortable shower. In some houses or hotels, however, if you move the knob, there is a significant delay before you feel any change in the water temperature. You might arrange it so the water is perfect. You get in the shower, and you get your self soapy and …

OOPS!

You are suddenly being boiled alive! So, you step out of the scalding water, and drip water all over the floor and go back round to the controls and turn the knobs until it feels comfortable again. You’ve learned your lesson. So you wait. Still comfy. Good. In you go. Ah, feels nice…

OOPS!

Suddenly you are being sprayed with ice water!

Think back and you’ve quite likely experienced something like this. If the feedback is delayed a bit, it makes it harder to adjust things. And, if the feedback for your actions is delayed a lot, it makes the adjustment very difficult indeed. Of course, if you have experience with that particular system or you have a decent model of how the system works, then, you can do a much more reasonable job of adjustment.

Guess what? This is one of the factors that makes “opening the economy back up” extremely hard to do safely. I didn’t say “impossible” but very difficult. If you decrease social distancing regulations and people respond to those regulations by doing precisely as you’ve directed, it will be at least a week before you have reliable feedback about whether your actions have been too little lifting of restrictions, just right, too much or way too much. (It’s quite possible the “Goldilocks Zone” between surging cases way beyond hospital capacity and destroying the economy is very narrow).

And, now let’s imagine that you are one of those politicians who looks at the data and immediately realizes and admits that you opened things up way too much. You retrench. You close things down. Once again, there will be a delay before the rate of new infections, new hospitalizations, and deaths starts to decline again. Meanwhile, even if you, the mayor or governor is wise enough to savvy to the delayed feedback, many of your constituents will not be.

“What do you mean, you’re closing back down!!? You just opened up two weeks ago! I brought everybody back, assured my customers it was fine, bought all this inventory — and you shut me down!? Now, I’ve been shut down a week and so what? The cases keep going up anyway. Your order is bullshit and has no impact!”

If you bow to that pressure, it will be a disaster.

OOPS!

If you are a mayor governor, you also need to realize that your orders themselves have zero impact on the pandemic. What does matter, but which is influenced by your orders, is actual behavior. It may seem an obvious point, but it seems to be overlooked. If for example, you have been honest and open with the public, other things being equal, you will get greater compliance and faster compliance. If you have not been honest, on the other hand, you will get (other things being equal) less complete compliance and slower compliance. As leader, the feedback between what you do and what you see in terms of cases will take a least a week just based on the nature of the disease. But there may also be additional time lag because of the fact that people will not all comply. It would be really good to have measures in place of aggregate compliance in order to understand what is really happening.

Sadly, COVID19 is worse — much worse — in this regard than the shower example. I don’t just mean that the outcome is potentially worse than an uncomfortable shower. It is, obviously. What I mean is that the other examples, though they had delay, were (at least till I got in the loop) basically linear systems.

Spread of contagious diseases is nothing like that!

It is exponential growth. Exponential growth can be explosive growth.

You may recall from your high school days, that rabbits were introduced to Australia and for a time bred for food. At some point, they began to undergo a population explosion and became serious pests for Australia.

You might find this paragraph of particular interest:

“The population explosion was ascribed to the disappearance of native predators, but the emergence of a hardier breed by natural selection has subsequently been attributed to their spread.” — op. cit. (4/28/2020)

Awkwardly worded, but I take it to mean that one of the effects of exponential growth is that it can result in hardier breeds. I suppose that the hardier breeds also help foster that exponential growth. A resurgent pandemic also means an explosion — not just in the number of humans who are affected — it also means an explosion in the number of COVID19 viruses on the planet. Therefore, there is a much greater population from which adaptive mutations of various kinds can arise.

There is already evidence that COVID19 has evolved and now exists in different strains. Some strains may be more virulent than others. The degree of cross-strain immunity is as yet unknown. (Update?)

OOPS!

Imagine you live in a straw house. It’s actually pretty comfortable most of the time. But one night it gets really cold, so you decide to start a fire for warmth. Of course, you realize that your house is straw so you aim to be very very careful. And you are. And, then two sparks from your fire spew out in two different directions and set your entire house on fire. Of course, you do your best to put it out. But you don’t. It got away from you.

OOPS!

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Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Parametric Recipes and American Democracy

You Bet Your Life!

Citizen Soldiers.

Essays on America: The Game