Fwd: The Big Picture on Coronavirus: Interview with Larry Brilliant

this is interesting, if you haven't had altogether too much coronavirus discussion already, in which case right above is the delete button. Please hit. 

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From: Tikkun & the Network of Spiritual Progressives <rabbilerner@tikkun.org>
Date: Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 4:01 PM
Subject: The Big Picture on Coronavirus: Interview with Larry Brilliant
To: David Studhalter <studhalter@gyromantic.com>

We need your support to bring the kind of analyses and information Tikkun provides. Click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. The Doctor who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming by Steven Levy Image courtesy of Joi Ito Larry Brilliant says he doesn't have a crystal ball. But 14 years ago, Brilliant, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox, spoke to a TED audience and described what the next pandemic would look like. At the time, it sounded almost too horrible to take seriously. "A billion people would get sick," he said. "As many as 165 million people would die. There would be a global recession and depression, and the cost to our economy of $1 to $3 trillion would be far worse for everyone than merely 100 million people dying, because so many more people would lose their jobs and their health care benefits, that the consequences are almost unthinkable."   Now the unthinkable is here, and Brilliant, the Chairman of the board of Ending Pandemics, is sharing expertise with those on the front lines. We are a long way from 100 million deaths due to the novel coronavirus, but it has turned our world upside down. Brilliant is trying not to say "I told you so" too often. But he did tell us so, not only in talks and writings, but as the senior technical advisor for the pandemic horror film Contagion, now a top streaming selection for the homebound. Besides working with the World Health Organization in the effort to end smallpox, Brilliant, who is now 75, has fought flu, polio, and blindness; once led Google's nonprofit wing, Google.org; co-founded the conferencing system the Well; and has traveled with the Grateful Dead. We talked by phone on Tuesday. At the time, President Donald Trump's response to the crisis had started to change from "no worries at all" to finally taking more significant steps to stem the pandemic. Brilliant lives in one of the six Bay Area counties where residents were ordered to shelter in place. When we began the conversation, he'd just gotten off the phone with someone he described as high government official, who asked Brilliant "How the fuck did we get here?" I wanted to hear how we'll get out of here. The conversation has been edited and condensed. Steven Levy: I was in the room in 2006 when you gave that TED talk. Your wish was "Help Me Stop Pandemics." You didn't get your wish, did you? Larry Brilliant: No, I didn't get that wish at all, although the systems that I asked for have certainly been created and are being used. It's very funny because we did a movie, Contagion— We're all watching that movie now. People say Contagion is prescient. We just saw the science. The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when. It's really hard to get people to listen. I mean, Trump pushed out the admiral on the National Security Council, who was the only person at that level who's responsible for pandemic defense. With him went his entire downline of employees and staff and relationships. And then Trump removed the [early warning] funding for countries around the world. I've heard you talk about the significance that this is a "novel" virus. It doesn't mean a fictitious virus. It's not like a novel or a novella. Too bad. It means it's new. That there is no human being in the world that has immunity as a result of having had it before. That means it's capable of infecting 7.8 billion of our brothers and sisters. Since it's novel, we're still learning about it. Do you believe that if someone gets it and recovers, that person thereafter has immunity? So I don't see anything in this virus, even though it's novel, [that contradicts that]. There are cases where people think that they've gotten it again, [but] that's more likely to be a test failure than it is an actual reinfection. But there's going to be tens of millions of us or hundreds of millions of us or more who will get this virus before it's all over, and with large numbers like that, almost anything where you ask "Does this happen?" can happen. That doesn't mean that it is of public health or epidemiological importance. Is this the worst outbreak you've ever seen? It's the most dangerous pandemic in our lifetime. We are being asked to do things, certainly, that never happened in my lifetime—stay in the house, stay six feet away from other people, don't go to group gatherings. Are we getting the right advice? Well, as you reach me, I'm pretending that I'm in a meditation retreat, but I'm actually being semi-quarantined in Marin County. Yes, this is very good advice. But did we get good advice from the president of the United States for the first 12 weeks? No. All we got were lies. Saying it's fake, by saying this is a Democratic hoax. There are still people today who believe that, to their detriment. Speaking as a public health person, this is the most irresponsible act of an elected official that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime. But what you're hearing now [to self-isolate, close schools, cancel events] is right. Is it going to protect us completely? Is it going to make the world safe forever? No. It's a great thing because we want to spread out the disease over time. Flatten the curve. By slowing it down or flattening it, we're not going to decrease the total number of cases, we're going to postpone many cases, until we get a vaccine—which we will, because there's nothing in the virology that makes me frightened that we won't get a vaccine in 12 to 18 months. Eventually, we will get to the epidemiologist gold ring. What's that? That means, A, a large enough quantity of us have caught the disease and become immune. And B, we have a vaccine. The combination of A plus B is enough to create herd immunity, which is around 70 or 80 percent. I hold out hope that we get an antiviral for Covid-19 that is curative, but in addition is prophylactic. It's certainly unproven and it's certainly controversial, and certainly a lot of people are not going to agree with me. But I offer as evidence two papers in 2005, one in Nature and one in Science. They both did mathematical modeling with influenza, to see whether saturation with just Tamiflu of an area around a case of influenza could stop the outbreak. And in both cases, it worked. I also offer as evidence the fact that at one point we thought HIV/AIDS was incurable and a death sentence. Then, some wonderful scientists discovered antiviral drugs, and we've learned that some of those drugs can be given prior to exposure and prevent the disease. Because of the intense interest in getting [Covid-19] conquered, we will put the scientific clout and money and resources behind finding antivirals that have prophylactic or preventive characteristics that can be used in addition to [vaccines]. When will we be able to leave the house and go back to work? I have a very good retrospect-oscope, but what's needed right now as a prospecto-scope. If this were a tennis match, I would say advantage virus right now. But there's really good news from South Korea—they had less than 100 cases today. China had more cases imported than it had from continuous transmission from Wuhan today. The Chinese model will be very hard for us to follow. We're not going to be locking people up in their apartments, boarding them up. But the South Korea model is one that we could follow. Unfortunately, it requires doing the proportionate number of tests that they did—they did well over a quarter of a million tests. In fact, by the time South Korea had done 200,000 tests, we had probably done less than 1,000. Now that we've missed the opportunity for early testing, is it too late for testing to make a difference? Absolutely not. Tests would make a measurable difference. We should be doing a stochastic process random probability sample of the country to find out where the hell the virus really is. Because we don't know. Maybe Mississippi is reporting no cases because it's not looking. How would they know? Zimbabwe reports zero cases because they don't have testing capability, not because they don't have the virus. We need something that looks like a home pregnancy test, that you can do at home. If you were the president for one day, what would you say in the daily briefing? I would begin the press conference by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Ron Klain—he was the Ebola czar [under President Barack Obama], and now I've called him back and made him COVID czar. Everything will be centralized under one person who has the respect of both the public health community and the political community." We're a divided country right now. Right now, Tony Fauci [head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] is the closest that we come to that. Are you scared? I'm in the age group that has a one in seven mortality rate if I get it. If you're not worried, you're not paying attention. But I'm not scared. I firmly believe that the steps that we're taking will extend the time that it takes for the virus to make the rounds. I think that, in turn, will increase the likelihood that we will have a vaccine or we will have a prophylactic antiviral in time to cut off, reduce, or truncate the spread. Everybody needs to remember: This is not a zombie apocalypse. It's not a mass extinction event. Should we be wearing masks? The N95 mask itself is extremely wonderful. The pores in the mask are three microns wide. The virus is one micron wide. So you get people who say, well, it's not going to work. But you try having three big, huge football players who are rushing for lunch through a door at lunchtime—they're not going to get through. In the latest data I saw, the mask provided 5x protection. That's really good. But we have to keep the hospitals going and we have to keep the health professionals able to come to work and be safe. So masks should go where they're needed the most: in taking care of patients. How will we know when we're through this? The world is not going to begin to look normal until three things have happened. One, we figure out whether the distribution of this virus looks like an iceberg, which is one-seventh above the water, or a pyramid, where we see everything. If we're only seeing right now one-seventh of the actual disease because we're not testing enough, and we're just blind to it, then we're in a world of hurt. Two, we have a treatment that works, a vaccine or antiviral. And three, maybe most important, we begin to see large numbers of people—in particular nurses, home health care providers, doctors, policemen, firemen, and teachers who have had the disease—are immune, and we have tested them to know that they are not infectious any longer. And we have a system that identifies them, either a concert wristband or a card with their photograph and some kind of a stamp on it. Then we can be comfortable sending our children back to school, because we know the teacher is not infectious. And instead of saying "No, you can't visit anybody in nursing home," we have a group of people who are certified that they work with elderly and vulnerable people, and nurses who can go back into the hospitals and dentists who can open your mouth and look in your mouth and not be giving you the virus. When those three things happen, that's when normalcy will return. This interview appeared first on Apple News. We need your support to bring the kind of analyses and information Tikkun provides. Click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Contact Us Tikkun & the Network of Spiritual Progressives 2342 Shattuck Ave #1200 Berkeley, California 94704 (510) 644-1200 magazine@tikkun.org Unsubscribe

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佛光山

All we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.   --Dhammapada

 

COVID is not FLU, life in the time of Coronavirus

Farflung correspondents, 

You STILL see people comparing COVID to the seasonal flu. This is not only not correct medically, it is potentially dangerous disinformation. This piece (Johns Hopkins) gives a very quick rundown of some of the differences, but one crucial difference that is frequently discussed among epidemiologists when interviewed by objective and probing journalists, but not penetrating the more general media, is this: the flu kills, relatively infrequently, not generally by directly damaging the tissues of the lungs, but sort of like a careless visitor who leaves the door open so the axe murderer gets in. Flu weakens the body and its immune system, allowing opportunistic, usually bacterial, pneumonia to get a foothold. What weakens the system is not so much the virus itself but the body's own inflammatory response. This happens more frequently, of course, to older and generally less healthy people. The 1918 flu, for reasons that have never been fully and satisfactorily explained, preferentially affected younger people, especially men, but that is not true of flu in general, or of coronavirus disease (including other coronaviruses). 

COVID, on the other hand, IS the axe murderer. It directly damages the lungs, and can, in fortunately relatively infrequent cases, cause very rapid progression from healthy to absolutely critical condition and even death, within days. It is, apparently, slightly MORE contagious than ordinary flu. But the reasons it is so threatening is not only that it has an overall death rate in the vicinity of 10x typical seasonal flu, it also has a much higher incidence of serious illness, requiring hospitalization, which has the potential to completely overwhelm medical systems worldwide. This is already happening in many areas.

The fact that COVID sharply skews upwards in people over 50 and with generally poor health, especially COPD and asthma, is well known by now. People over 70 are at significantly greater risk even in the absence of underlying conditions, and people over 80 even moreso. The virus also preferentially, to a certain extent, kills men more often than women. But, from most reports, the presence of underlying health deficits is even more of a risk factor than age alone. These observations are in part still anecdotal; a clear scientifically verified profile of this disease has not yet been developed. 

Two additional points that many people fail to appreciate. It is completely meaningless to compare the death rate from COVID to car accidents or seasonal flu. These things are already present, to their full extent, in our society, and we have adapted to their effects. COVID, even now, is just getting started on its massive worldwide tsunami of NOVEL infection, to which no one, except the limited number who have already recovered, has immunity. Eventually, it will mutate (because any pathogen that has strains that are fatal to a significant fraction of their hosts will tend through natural selection, running at hundreds of thousands of times faster in viruses than in macroscopic organisms, to mutate into less lethal forms). Also,  we will develop a vaccine or effective antivirals, or, through ordinary development of herd immunity that eventually happens even without intervention... but in any case, eventually, the epidemic will subside. In the meantime, it is not primarily the raw numbers of deaths, but the complete breakdown of our ability to deliver medical care, to COVID victims or anyone else, that is of greatest concern. 

The ancillary, but also very serious, effects on the global economy are also reasons not to follow our president's idiotic advice, but to follow protocols designed to turn the curve down and begin to reduce infections. (Because if we go into a cycle of repeated lockdowns and easing up, but never really get the virus under control, we will see little if any economic recovery (who will go to the movies when their family members are sick and can't get a hospital bed?), and in the end the overall effect of the epidemic will be far worse, not better. Virtually everyone with a clear understanding of the disease and fundamentals of economics, including most Republicans not entirely beholden to the president, agree with this. The British briefly tried the "let it ride, herd immunity" route, but quickly realized it was a disaster, and now Boris Johnson sounds almost exactly like Tony Fauci. 

A second point, less important perhaps but not too well known, is that it appears that this virus often causes PERMANENT damage to the respiratory systems of those who become critically ill but recover. The flu and even bacterial pneumonia do not typically do this to as great an extent. This effect is still being evaluated, and as far as I know remains anecdotal, but you can be pretty sure there will be scientific papers published on it soon. 

Stay well, stay home, if you do have to go out, keep your distance. We will get through this. Bad as it is, it is self-limiting, and if we pull together as a country and even as a world, we may be in a better position to put the pieces back together afterwards, and even have an opportunity to jettison some of the more self-destructive behavior we've been engaging in as a species for the last number of years. I remain guardedly optimistic on that score. 

David

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Brown to issue stay at home order

Of interest principally to Oregonians. 

https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2020/03/22/gov-kate-brown-is-preparing-to-order-oregonians-to-stay-home-effective-monday/  

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佛光山

All we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.   --Dhammapada

 

Corona News

This is the most hopeful and encouraging thing I've seen in a while. From LATimes.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-22/coronavirus-outbreak-nobel-laureate

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David 

 

Fwd: For Our Joint Sanity

This is what it means to face crisis with courage.

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From: Portland Piano <info@portlandpiano.org>
Date: Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 3:29 PM
Subject: For Our Joint Sanity
To: <ds@gyromantic.com>

On this oddly quiet first day of the "work-week," we find ourselves still thinking lots and lots about you. So many of you have let us know that you have enjoyed our prior messages with those great Anderson & Roe music videos. Thus, for our joint sanity, we thought we'd keep going!   In 1939, in the midst of the bombardment of London, the phenomenal and brave pianist Myra Hess (later made a Dame by the monarch), proposed playing a recital for anxious Londoners at the National Gallery and found a queue of people waiting for the first one to be two miles long! She continued with her own recitals and organized another 1,697 concerts, lasting through April of 1946. A total of 824,152 people came and more than 16,000 pounds was contributed to the Musicians Benevolent Fund. She opened every one of her recitals with her own transcription of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."   Here is a video of Dame Myra (click image for video): It was a different time and the recording is slightly funky, but the sincerity comes through.   Decades later, when our pal and favorite artist Angela Hewitt was scheduled to play a recital for a gala for the series on September 16, 2001, 9/11 happened and air travel in the United State was suspended. But, Angela was in Ottawa, flew to Vancouver, B.C., traveled by a friend's car to the American border at Blaine, Washington, was met there by a new Portland friend who got her to Portland three hours before curtain, and the show went on as planned.   Without a word to the audience, adding to the announced program, Angela strode on stage in cobalt blue sequins and began with Dame Myra's wonderful transcription. A thousand people burst into tears. It was one of PPI's best moments in history.   And, here is Angela. (click image for video). This video may even be of that September 11, 2001 moment. You buoy our spirits in this challenging time, dear PPI family. Let's do stay in touch.   "Music, my rampart, and my only one." – Edna St. Vincent Millay Sincerely yours, Maryellen McCulloch  Board President             Lauren Canfield Treasurer Robin Power             Associate Director      Bill Crane Director of Audience Engagement   You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website, while purchasing a ticket or through some other sign up process. Our mailing address is: Portland Piano International PO Box 6469 Portland, OR 97228 Add us to your address book Office Phone: (503) 228-1388 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list Copyright © 2020 Portland Piano International, All rights reserved.

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佛光山

All we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.   --Dhammapada

 

A pretty alarming, but not alarmist, view of the COVID 19 emergency as it now stands.

 

http://www.gyromantic.com/2020/03/reem-ghalib-md-on-covid-19.html

 

Reem Ghalib MD on COVID 19

Dr. Reem Ghalib summarized the situation in one of the best social media posts to date on this topic (copied/pasted below). Please read what she has to say and share with your loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Urge people to be calm and logical in their decision making. Err on the side of caution. Re the info below--note that "coronavirus" is used generically to mean the specific strain Covid 19.  

Dear Friends,

So much confusion, misinformation and denial is bouncing around on social media about the coronavirus that I thought I would try to explain, in plain language, why the experts see this as such an emergency.

You will see the claim online that this virus is a lot like the viruses that cause colds, and that if you get it, it will probably just seem like a bad cold and you are very unlikely to die. Depending on who you are, these statements are probably true. But they are incomplete, and the missing information is the key to understanding the problem.

This is a coronavirus that is new to the human population, jumping into people late last year from some kind of animal, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. It is related to the viruses that cause colds, and acts a lot like them in many ways. It is very easy to transmit through the respiratory droplets that all of us give off. But nobody has ever been exposed to this before, which means nobody has any immunity to it.

The virus is now moving explosively through the human population. While most people will recover, about 20 percent of the people who catch it will wind up with a serious disease. They will get pneumonia that causes shortness of breath, and they may need hospitalization.

Some of those people will get so sick that they cannot be saved and will die of the pneumonia. The overall death rate for people who develop symptoms seems to be 2 or 3 percent. Once we have enough testing to find out how many people caught the virus but did not develop symptoms, that might come down to about 1 percent, optimistically.

This is a large number. It is at least 10 times higher than the mortality rate for the seasonal flu, for instance, which in some years kills 60,000 or 70,000 Americans. So just on that math, we could be looking at 600,000 or 700,000 dead in the United States. But it gets worse.

Older people with existing health problems are much more vulnerable, on average. The mortality rate of coronavirus among people over age 80 may be 15 or 20 percent. It appears to have 7 or 8 percent mortality for people aged 70 to 79. Here is the terrible part: If you are a healthy younger person, you can catch the virus and, without developing serious symptoms yourself, you can pass it along to older people. In other words, as the virus spreads, it is going to be very easy to go out and catch it, give it to your grandmother and kill her, even though you will not die yourself. You can catch it by touching a door knob or an elevator button.

Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or “R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who develops the illness, how many other people do they give it to before they are cured (or dead) and no longer infectious? The R0 for coronavirus, in the absence of a control strategy, appears to be a number close to 3 – maybe a bit higher or lower, but in that ballpark. This is an extremely frightening number for such a deadly disease.

Suppose you catch the virus. You will give it to 3 other people, and they will each give it to three others, and so forth. Here is how the math works, where you, the “index case,” are the first line:
1
3
9
27
81
243
729
2,187
6,561
19,683
59,046
177,147
531,441
1,594,323
4,782,969
14,348,907

So, in just 15 steps of transmission, the virus has gone from just one index case to 14.3 million other people. Those 15 steps might take only a few weeks. The index person may be young and healthy, but many of those 14 million people will be old and sick, and they will likely die because they got a virus that started in one person's throat.

The United States is not at this point yet, with millions infected, as best we can tell. We don’t really know, because our government has failed us. We are many, many weeks behind other countries in rolling out widespread testing, so we don’t really have a clue how far the thing has spread. We do know that cases are starting to pop up all over the place, with many of the people having no known exposure to travelers from China, so that means this virus has escaped into our communities.

We do not have approved treatments, yet. We do not have a vaccine. The only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of transmission.

This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is exploding so fast that we will not have the labor available to trace contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough.

It is now likely that the majority of Americans will get this virus. But slowing it down is still crucial. Why? Because the healthcare system has limited resources. We only have about a million hospital beds in America. We have well under a million ventilators. If millions of Americans get sick enough to need treatment, we will have a calamity on our hands. What will happen is a form of battlefield triage, where the doctors focus on trying to treat the young and allow the older people to die.

This is not theoretical. It is already happening in Italy, where people over 65 are being left alone on hospital gurneys to suffocate to death from pneumonia. They basically drown in their own sputum. There is simply not enough medical capacity to take care of them. The United States appears to be about two weeks behind Italy on the epidemic growth curve.

What do we need to do now? We need to cancel all large gatherings – all of them. You have probably seen that the N.B.A. has postponed the rest of its season. Other sporting events, concerts, plays and everything else involving large audiences in a small space – all of it needs to be canceled. Even if these events take place, do not go to them. No lectures, no plays, no movies, no cruises – nothing.

Stay at home as much as possible.Stay out of restaurants. I would cancel any travel that is not absolutely essential. Work from home if you possibly can. You may have to go buy groceries and medicine, of course, but make the trips quick and purposeful. Wash your hands assiduously after you have been in public places, for a full 20 seconds, soaping up thoroughly and being sure to get between the fingers. Sunlight and alcohol will kill the virus.

And please stop passing around statements on social media claiming that the situation is not serious or is being exaggerated. This is a national crisis, and conveying misinformation to your friends and family may put their lives in danger”

Don't panic... but rational fear and sensible precautions... hell yeah

Look, I'm trying really hard to be rational and not panicked about this COVID 19. Sensible precautions, etc. And up until recently I was probably more concerned about the disruption and likely worldwide recession that will be coming down the pike than the danger of actually dying from the disease. But THIS scares me, personally. I'm 67 and many, even most of my friends and relatives are over 60. Obviously all we can do is to take the recommended precautions. But we must take them SERIOUSLY. In most places in the US, the virus is not yet present in the general population. But it WILL be in the coming weeks or months, and if you are over 60 you had better take very seriously the need to protect yourself from infection. If you get sick, you will probably survive, but the statistics are horrible. Hopefully these will turn out to be applicable only to the conditions in China in February, and not apply to our very different living conditions, lifestyle, and medical care here in the US. But to minimize the fact that this really is a very deadly and dangerous disease, from which the great majority have no immunity, is to be a fool.

"As you can see, very low rates of mortality (relatively speaking for the young) up to very high ones for people over 80 and a steady slope from 1% on up over age 50. We have a great deal of evidence that for the great majority of people who are young or relatively young and in good health COVID-19 is a manageable disease. But for the elderly and those in fragile health it is very dangerous and deadly in a significant percentage of cases."

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-studies-shed-light-on-impact-and-vulnerability-to-covid-19

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Epidemiologist comments on COVID-19

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cI_D3ULz6-qoBRMND8dIVz-naW92MqATphBg5bQEIjg/preview?fbclid=IwAR3IA1NOAJ2OZJN9jYFWiRjHqeNmKz7Rzp1flihCqGvgGZPF4wsfL-Z1arE  

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佛光山

All we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.   --Dhammapada

 

Zinc ion preparations help reduce corona virus replication?

This may seem less than totally scientific, but it falls in the category of "what do you have to lose?" which is the same basis on which I take certain supplements like CoQ10 and Nicotinamide Riboside/PQQ/Pterostilbene, which have been shown to have some efficacy even if not definitively so. Since thanks to the decimation of public health by the Trump administration our public health response to the coming epidemic is pathetic, and doesn't promise to get any better, we need to do what we can as individuals to try to lessen the impact. 

Anyway, everyone legitimately wonders what they can do to decrease the likelihood that they will become severely ill or even die from the now-likely epidemic of COVID-19. (Not here yet, but responsible experts say "when not if.") It occurred to me to wonder whether zinc compound containing prophylactics like Airborne might have some effect, and there is at least some research to suggest that Zn compounds like pyrithione which make zinc ions bioavailable may indeed inhibit the replication of RNA viruses like coronaviruses. Not definitive, but it's enough for me. If the disease reaches a level of widespread "community spreading," such that health experts start advising people not to shake hands, not to go to public gatherings or ride public transportation if symptomatic; to self-quarantine if ill, etc., I intend to not only maintain a heightened hand washing and avoidance of face-touching hygiene routine, but to take something like Airborne if anyone around me is sick of at the slightest sign of illness. I believe I have actually experienced the avoidance of colds, or reduction in their duration and/or severity, from use of these kinds of preparations, so if there's any chance it's actually true that they inhibit viral replication, seems to me it's worth it to take them. 

See this. 

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A modest announcement of conceivable interest

Friends and correspondents, 

Some of you may know that I've tried to play some or all of Bach's monumental keyboard Partita in E minor BWV 830 before in various settings and fragments, but anyway I'm giving it another go at the Community Music Workshop  next Tuesday, Jan. 28 at noon  at the Portland Community Music Center,at 3550 SE Francis, between Powell and Holgate. [If you're receiving this and don't live in Portland, it's just for information, of cours]. 

I will be playing a simulated harpsichord using a Roland C30 (electronic harpsichord) as either the controller for a software model or using the onboard Flemish harpsichord sample set. (Technicalities; will depend on acoustics and logistics). If anyone is interested in attending, they are of course welcome, and anyway even better will be the really fine pianist who comes after me on the program, Kristy Moore, who will play (I'm sure beautifully) the haunting and mysterious Première Communion de la Vierge  from Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). 

I always say the CMW is a workshop, not a professional level performance, which is certainly true for me and some others, but some, including Kristy, are really fine musicians and you will be in for a real treat. There is no admission charge but contributions to the Community Music Center, which has the usual 21st century budgetary problems and constraints, are welcomed and encouraged. The organizer for  the CMW is Judy Seubert, who deserves our enormous gratitude for making this happen every month. 

You should feel free to ask questions after the music; people rarely do but it always livens things up when someone does. 

The pianist starting out the program asked me not to publicize her appearance one other time, so I refrain this time, too, and that's the only reason. It's in the program. 

Thanks to anyone planning to come. Draft program, subject to change, attached. 

David Studhalter 

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佛光山

All we are is the result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.   --Dhammapada

 

stolen from a friend's facebook post

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. "

--Plato

(Stolen from a friend's Facebook post. Just love this picture). 

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Discovery of a galaxy so distant we're seeing it as it was less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang

This article doesn't really focus on what I consider the main point. Which is that the morphology of this, the most distant galaxy yet observed, confirms the fact that all galaxies are approximately the same age, and that early on they were very different from later epochs. Which is confirmation of the FACT that the Big Bang is real. It is true that there are problems with all the detailed models of the Big Bang and the inflationary period that resulted in an enormous physical universe beyond even the part of it that's even theoretically observable, but the basic fact that the universe we live in is finite and finite in age is the only plausible hypothesis consistent with the data... including this data. The simple question, how much of the universe lies beyond the horizon where light from there could ever reach us on Earth, is unanswerable. It is pretty clear that it's "most of it," but it could be anywhere from 90% to a power of ten so enormous the mind literally boggles and fails to comprehend. 

Happy Holidays, everyone. 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/world/mambo-9-distant-galaxy-scn/index.html   

 

Nature simply does not care what we believe. 

 

The threat to the Rule of Law

I think most people, who get most of their information about public affairs from television and social media, are not really grasping just how serious a threat to the rule of law Trump's outright refusal to cooperate with the Article I branch in investigating him and his administration actually is. If you talk to people with knowledge and interest in Constitutional law, they, almost all of them, feel like their hair is on fire at the complacency with which the Cult of the Republican Party is treating this threat.

But Democratic candidates need to do a much better job of conveying the gravity of this situation to their constituency and potential voters in the upcoming election. One point they should be... and mostly aren't... making is that our economy depends on a fully functioning and impartial system of law and justice. Of course it isn't perfect, far from it, but one of the reasons even China invests in American financial securities, and investors worldwide have hitherto seen the US as a safe haven for investment and as a place to locate businesses and manufacturing, is that they can be confident no oligarch will seize their property, like in Russia, and that if they become involved in a dispute they won't have to bribe someone or play politics to get due process of law and reasonably honest dispute resolution. We devolve into authoritarianism, autarchy, systemic corruption... all the hallmarks of Trump and his administration... and our very economic security, as well as our political liberties and rights, will be severely threatened. Get even a glimmer of awareness of this situation to dawn on some folks who don't usually think much about politics, and Trump's support will start swirling down the toilet even faster, as it should.

The decision to move forward on impeachment

I share the oft expressed doubt about the wisdom of pressing ahead on impeachment without forcing the WH to cooperate on witnesses and documents, which would probably take until well into the election season. But, in weighing the obvious factors, I find myself agreeing with Josh Marshall, who also has doubts but comes down in favor of getting on with it NOW.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-right-decision-is-to-move-ahead-now  

"Medicare for All"

I've come to dislike the meme "Medicare for All" even more than "Single Payer," which was coined by opponents to frame it as something scary. But what we're talking about is NOT Medicare as we know it. It is decent, maybe not absolutely perfect, but decent medical care, including care for catastrophic illnesses, that is truly universal. This is a commitment society must make to its members in order to qualify, at this stage of our development, as truly civilized. Full stop. Simple as that.  

Since nearly every developed country, including South Korea, Taiwan, almost all European countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, and even some Latin American countries, come a whole lot closer to this ideal than we do, there is simply no way anyone can convince me that we cannot "afford" this.