Some perspectives on COVID-19

China is now reporting their first case in mid-November, so it likely traveled beyond their borders far earlier than January. It's probably much more widespread than believed already, and likely many more people have had it already than anyone will ever be aware of.

While we assume it started in China, it's only because their very controlled system spotted it as novel first, but there's been no confirmation of it there in the animal populations they've been able to study, yet. It could've started elsewhere and spread there for them to spot.

Remember, most people get mild cases of it and it is transmitted easily, even without visible symptoms. Indeed, you may have already had it and not known it, thinking it was something else.

The good news in all that - it's likely statistically less deadly than originally believed and many more people are probably already immune to it than we are know of.

People rightly compare it to the 1918 pandemic, but we have many tools available to us that were not available in 1918, including the ability to talk about it and plan over the internet, to spread information, and get food and supplies delivered to our doors. We also have the ability to create a vaccine, and trials on it are starting now, even if it will take many months to get it deployed. It is very contagious and is very much more dangerous than a typical flu, especially for those at risk. But, this is not the plague, or polio, nor measles or smallpox, all of which decimated large populations around the world.

We all need to stay in to prevent overwhelming the medical system, but in the end, the vast majority of us will be just fine. So stay home, enjoy a calmer life as our ancestors once did, without racing off to work. Read a book, watch some movies, spend quality time with your families. Consider it a world-wide spring cleaning. An opportunity to reflect on what our world has come to, and perhaps even a opportunity to make a new start to working together to solve the world's many issues.

And save some toilet paper for the rest of us!

We need President Biden NOW

This is what a President sounds like.

Sad to watch my friends sink to such depths of despair ...

I have many friends who are Sanders supporters, and I won't argue or even engage with them on the topic, because some (not all) are so wrapped up in the personality cult aspects of the "Revolution". Many seem to have completely lost their bearings, and are spewing out GOP talking points and videos and links to Russian articles, etc. and just generally sounding like the Trumpanzees they claim to despise. It's so sad. I can't say anything to them, as that won't accomplish anything but being attacked or being disowned.

They can't seem to understand the difference between allies with different ways of approaching the problem and mortal enemies. They act like no one has ever lost an election before. I didn't act like that when Liz dropped out, and I haven't seen other friends and acquaintances who supported Buttegieg and Klobuchar or Warren act like that.

They really can't see that one of the biggest problems facing Sanders' attempts are based on Sanders' and their own actions. They don't get that they are the ones driving everyone away from their rigid positions. For many, especially Warren supporters, it's not the policies, nor the messages, but the messenger that we oppose. As a long time leader of teams and organizations large and small, I could go on at some length about how Sanders approach to leadership can never work, and how his selection of people around him demonstrates poor judgement, and how most people don't want a "revolution", we want progress and healing. But they don't listen, no matter how carefully phrased.

It will take a team of hard-working, dedicated and intelligent people from all walks of life to solve these issues, and alienating everyone, right to the edge (and sometimes over) of sexist, age-ist and racist remarks, by people who I know are not normally like that, won't accomplish that. The one-person-knows-all approach is failing us right before our eyes in DC, and they seem bent on replacing that with their form, regardless of the wishes of the majority of the people in the party and in the country. "Democracy? Vote? We don't need that, you all are too stupid to know what's good for you!" No matter how they phrase it, that's what they are saying, and it's infuriating. But I bite my tongue and wait for the results of the elections.

I'll be so glad when this primary is over.

GOP voting booth tactics

This from someone in rural rural northern California:

"4th election in a row our polling workers, all old, MAGA demographics folks, tried screwing with our ballots. Putting our standard ballots into the provisional ballot box, trying to say my wife and son weren't registered, etc.

Yesterday, they gave my wife a Republican ballot, we're registered Democrats and Ca has closed primaries. She didn't notice, except that Trump was on her ballot and her choice wasn't. So she wrote them in. She mentioned it when we got to the car. We already had our sample ballots filled out and she said the ballot wasn't the same. I realized what happened and we went back and fixed it."

They will cheat at every opportunity

The dynamics of the race are changing fast. Negativity will not work

News that Sanders is preparing a round of attack ads on Biden will backfire. So far in this cycle, going negative has not worked well at all. When HRC make comments about Sanders, his numbers bumped up each time. When Liz went negative in the debates, her numbers dropped. When Pete went after Amy after Iowa, it was roundly criticized and his position in the race dropped back. There are many more examples. People are sick of this garbage, we get it every day from Trump, and most will not tolerate it from a Democratic nominee - especially attacking an ally. Save it for the real enemies: Trump, Moscow Mitch and the Russian/GOP/NRA cabal. Biden does not have the strong negatives of HRC, and is widely viewed as a nice and fair gentleman. Attacks by Sanders on Biden are strongly discouraged by this observer.

Sanders has plateaued at 30%-ish, and cannot easily win the other 70% unless he changes the character of his campaign, which is highly improbable, since it would require a change in Sanders' personal character, and the removal of several key aides. In 2016, it was at this point, in early March as things starting heading south for the campaign, that Sanders went full-on scorched Earth. It was an amateur move, damaged his credibility then, and will destroy his slim chances when he does it now. I see no path for him to gain the 50%+1 that will be required to win the nomination.

Bloomberg is out now, and without him in the race, coupled with early voting already in, Biden would likely have won CA last night, also.

I've supported Warren since 2012, and love her, and only changed to Biden late last night. I wish she was viable, but it appears that the glass ceiling applies with progressive candidates as surely as it does in the other lanes. Shocking to me, really. Liz is going to get out soon. She had one narrow path, which required winning MA, and finishing at least second in CA and TX. Whether she thinks she can go on depends on her belief that this will be a contested convention. It won't be, mark my words. She will support Biden, perhaps a bit reluctantly, and will, quite rightly, continue to push for big, bold change. As is shown by the many people here who have moved from Warren to Biden already, most of Warren's supporters are going to go there. Of course, some will go Sanders' way, but the majority, IMO, don't really much like Sanders in the first place (or they'd already have picked him, and/or were former HRC supporters who want to see a woman in the White House) or, and an even bigger incentive, want her to have a seat at the table to get her agenda inserted into the government. We are not called "pragmatic progressives" for nothing - as they say, 20% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

The demeanor in the various speeches last night says it all. Watch the body language. The tide has turned.

Biden is not the timid, confused person that only wants status quo, that he is being portrayed as. That's all bullshit. He is smart, seasoned, and will hire the absolute best people to get the jobs done, and he WILL listen, compromise and work with whatever coalitions he can put together to find real solutions to our problems. He absolutely does not believe he is some sort of "stable genius", and instead has a genuine humility that will score major points around the world. I truly do believe that, even if he wasn't my first choice in this campaign. He's already made that clear with his comments to Beto, Amy and Pete (Beto in charge of gun policy!! YES!!)

Thank you to the huge crowds that turned out everywhere last night, to show us the "will of the people". And a special THANK YOU to the black community in particular, who refused to get pulled into the divisiveness and pettiness of the race, and made crystal clear who needs to be the candidate for the Democratic Party, so that we can beat Trump, keep the House, and hopefully, take back the Senate and a bunch of state-level races.

FIRED UP???????