April 11, 2020

LA Times: "How a stockpile of 39 million masks was exposed as fake"

Apr. 11, 2020

How a stockpile of 39 million masks was exposed as fake

A powerful California union that thought it had made a deal to purchase 39 million masks for healthcare workers fighting the coronavirus was duped in an elaborate scam that originated overseas, federal prosecutors say.

Authorities who stumbled onto the scheme while looking to seize the masks for the Federal Emergency Management Agency found there were in fact no masks.

This showed up from the LA Times in my email today. Just read and re-read this snippet from a Kafkaesque world.

April 11, 2020

Update on my brother (kind of funny)

Just before Thanksgiving last year it looked like #1 brother was going to die from complications related to COPD. He was in the ICU, home again, then back to the ICU. Sister, #2 brother, and I started preparing ourselves for coast to coast emergency flights over the TG weekend to say goodbye. I did something I've never done before, anywhere, much less at DU: I asked for prayers, and kind words poured in.

Meanwhile, someone at the clinic suggested a deep cleaning of his living space, on the chance that he was getting reinfected there. #2 brother knows the landlady, who's actually a very old friend of #1 brother, and at his request she hired a crew to wade in. Fortunately she also took a few "before" pictures -- because it cost us $1300. Ye gods.

He didn't get sick again. He stabilized. Deep cleaning, siblings, old friends, and prayers....

So here's today's update, straight from #2 brother, and it made me laugh. Sometimes being a cantankerous old coot really is what's called for.

Have either of you (we sisters) been tested? If not then Jay is the first. He called his doctor today (I think it is a nurse-practitioner at the clinic) and told them he has his yearly upper respiratory infection. They sent a "mini-ambulance" for him and strapped him in a wheelchair in the back and trucked him off to the clinic in Depoe Bay, where they tested him for both the flu and Covid-19. They then prescribed him a z-pack and tried to send him home. He did not go quietly and insisted that they stop at the pharmacy so that he could pick up the z-pack. Oh Mr. C__ they said, that is not part of the program! The Oregon Health Plan does not cover trips to your pharmacy! But I will have to walk back from my house to the pharmacy, and it is on the way! After phone calls in transit, they decided to bend the rules, and let him scamper into the pharmacy to get his cure. The driver had to take a break and check the air in the tires, or something.... Well, turns out the doctor called the wrong pharmacy, and they did not have anything for Jay and they would not call the doctor. That apparently is not part of the program either! So he said m'am, I am going to sit in this chair right here until you call them and get this sorted out. I am sick, I need the medicine, and I can't walk home and back as I can't drive any more.

So they did call the doctor, and get it sorted out, and the mini-ambulance took him home, with his cure.

And today, both tests came back negative, so he did not have the flu or Covid-19 when tested, but after the ambulance ride and trip to the pharmacy, who knows......

April 9, 2020

Well, it wasn't a Seder, but I lit candles, poured wine & called on absent friends & dead parents...

Well, it wasn't a Seder, but I lit candles, poured wine & called on absent friends & dead parents. Toasted Governor Newsom.
Cursed Trump, I admit it.

I stopped doing Passover years ago when DH wanted to do a drush on Buddhism (I ask you, is this the time? No, not really, when you're asking me to knock myself out for a Seder). We've been together nearly 40 years.

But what I am is a Mythologist (trust me, I'm a doctor) and someone more on the Goddess path than otherwise, and I couldn't get this plague and this wannabe Pharoah out of my mind.

I started an altar a week ago. Tonight we had candles and wine with our dinner, and we both toasted our absent beloveds, living and dead. Tomorrow I will harvest bitter herbs from my garden to add to my altar. Tonight, at last, the salt water of my tears is released.

There are lessons for us today in this thousands-years old story. Persevere. Keep going. Though the desert seems to go on forever, you will find the well of living water when you need it most. Drink deep. Live to tell the tale.

I raise my glass to you all, my friends.

April 8, 2020

Links to DU discussions regarding DIY masks. Quilter's' guilds all over the country are now sewing

....as fast as they can.

I sent the following as an email to my brother and sister on March 25, which seems like a year ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cloth Masks, because you never know

A group of volunteer seamstresses in Ojai, Ventura County, made the news tonight because they heard about the shortage.

I make no warranties. These are simply the discussion threads I bookmarked that looked of interest, like the one for the 3D printer. Jennifer's son actually has one at home he uses for work, so I sent her that link after I sent it to you (last week?)

This links to a discussion thread because I don't quite know how to extract the photos etc. I only dispute the last comment because, well hell, when you have nothing else...
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213127523

Another, from a medical journal, 2008
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213130867

Pattern
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213133357

Materials
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213128319

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Sent from my iPad

April 4, 2020

We boast that the entire planet is intricately connected & are surprised at what travels with us?

Just have a look at the maps of airline flights -- daily, hourly. Seven Billion Humans.

No airports where you are? Never fear, little virus, a local highway will take you to the heart of the Navajo Rez, a local river and footpath will take you into the Amazon.

It's not about dietary habits that one part of the world thinks is tasty and another part of the world thinks is disgusting. It's about US as human beings, wherever we are.

April 2, 2020

Thruout the Irish Potato Famine, landlords routinely shipped food out of the country. During COVID19

....Trump's federal government continues to allow (and frankly encourage, by their behavior and words) mask-manufacturers to sell their product overseas to the highest bidder. Did Rachel really just say 210 million?

Wrong revolution, but I am in the mood for a guillotine.