Dane-geld

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Britons faced waves of invasions from people they knew as the Danes.  We would probably call them Vikings, fierce plunderers of the English tribes who were living in Great Britain.

Sometimes rather than fight, English kings would try to buy off the invading Danes.  In what became essentially a protection racket lasting years, this Danish gold bribe, or Dane-geld in the language of the times, became common. One of the more infamous kings to pay it was Aethelred, who is known to history as Aethelred the Unready.  Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, "Dane-Geld," captures the heart of the problem: "Once you have paid him the Dane-geld/ You never get rid of the Dane."  Those long ago English kings found it poor policy to knuckle under to invaders who often didn't leave after they'd been bribed, but hung around demanding more payments, else they'd start breaking necks, much like a mobster in New York in the late 20th century.

The term Dane-geld has echoed down through the ages for more than a thousand years, a hated approbation for those accused of it.  Neville Chamberlain's attempts to placate the Nazis at the start of World War Two were derided in newspapers as paying Dane-geld.  The term has passed into the collective fabric of free people as a shameful practice never to be condoned.

And yet, its modern equivalent remains alive and well and even celebrated as corporate America cringes and bends the knee to the BLM protection racket.  Major League Baseball, the NFL and other corporations large and not so large, rather than refuting the violence, instead fall all over themselves to play up their contributions to BLM.  But these sops to the mob are not concrete actions to improve society.  Actions taken to appease are never sincere indications of real and lasting friendship, but rather empty smiles that mask true feelings of fear and hate.

Corporations have calculated that a public gesture of goodwill - a black armband, a mural, perhaps a Tuesday blackout Instagram post with the right hashtag - will buy off the screamers and the throwers of bricks.  In reality, these companies do not care one whit about the issues; they see paying protection money to a violent mob as just another cost of doing business.  Pride, ethics and history be damned if it stops the incoming fire.  But they have forgotten or never knew history. Once you pay the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.

Both groups in this dance of the ignorant, the short sighted corporate cowards and the spoiled children playing at revolution, may yet succeed in being remembered by future historians.  But that remembrance will not be for any positive change they have wrought; there is nothing positive in destruction. If they are remembered at all, it will be as a scornful footnote proving again that more than a thousand years after the term was coined, Dane-geld should still never be paid.

Rudyard Kipling's poem speaks of nations, but the truth should be heeded by those who lead corporations as well.  As a mental exercise, substitute the word "company" for "nation" as you read:

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
       For fear they should succumb and go astray;
    So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
       You will find it better policy to say: –

    "We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
       No matter how trifling the cost;
    For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
       And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Can You Become Reinfected With Covid-19? It's Very Unlikely, Experts Say

Reacting to this NYT article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/health/covid-antibodies-herd-immunity.html

We've been thinking/wondering about this ourselves (for obvious reasons).  There's an article on the NIH site of a paper that looks into that subject.  The sample size is small because they just don't have enough data and there hasn't been enough time to really study the subject.  The study looked at whether it's possible to become reinfected.  They tried to screen out people who had relapsed as opposed to becoming infected again and found evidence that it might be possible in some cases to catch the virus more than once, mostly amongst people with comorbidities.  On the surface, that sorta makes sense: if you're basically unhealthy, you have a better chance of catching things over and over because your immune system is weak.

In fact, that gets back to our premise that if you keep your immune system tuned up, you have less to worry about, from this virus, that virus, or even some cancers.  I guess it's at heart an idiotic statement or a tautology because what it essentially says is that if you're healthy, you're more likely to be healthy (duh!).  From an evolutionary biology perspective, we carry around within us a miracle pharmacy that can manufacture on the fly an antidote to almost anything we encounter - including novel virus strains.  All we have to do is keep that machine tuned up, quit eating crap, sweat regularly and move our lazy asses every day.

Watching my wife struggle through this crap for weeks has solidified my resolve to die on the trail.  That is, I intend to keep moving, literally until I die, hopefully while doing something fun like hiking or running or jumping naked into a cold lake in the back country. Fuck Covid-19.

short review of Brad Warner's "It Came From Beyond Zen"

If some enterprising publisher of a popular line of introductory texts wants to put out a "Dogen for Dummies" I nominate Brad Warner as the author of choice.  Of course, that book would have to compete with this one and its companion volume, "Don't be a Jerk," so perhaps it won't happen.

That's a shame, too, because in this second volume of his deep dive on Dogen, "It Came From Beyond Zen," Brad has written a fine introductory text for those of us who want to know more about the monk who started Soto Zen Buddhism, but don't or can't wade through the mostly scholarly tomes devoted to the subject. 

My bias will be stated right up front here: I believe Brad Warner is one of the best voices writing about Zen Buddhism today and I wish he were better known than he is.  I've practiced in this particular subgroup of the larger Zen world for not quite two decades.  I've attended one week-long group sitting with Brad in Atlanta more than ten years ago, so I've met him but I don't know him and he wouldn't remember me at all.

Brad is maybe less well known than other more flashy or controversial Zen teachers because he isn't flashy or controversial.  My impression, limited though it is, is that he's largely as he appears in his books: nerdish and knowledgeable, and very relatable.  His silly jokes and punk rock references mask a serious intellect.  This is after all a man who has been sitting Zazen for decades.  His knowledge of Japanese (he lived and worked there for years) gives him an insider's track when trying to explain Dogen, whose writing is nearly incomprehensible at times.

"It Came From Beyond Zen" continues Brad's paraphrase of Dogen's writings.  It's not a translation, though Brad references several standard ones throughout, but more a paraphrase, taking medieval Chinese and Japanese and recasting it in contemporary American English and we are all richer for Brad's hard work.  in the past I've banged my head against two different translations of Dogen, leaving me more puzzled than enlightened, and I gave up after maybe a week of trying to understand the Nishijama/Cross version.  It was obvious that Dogen was important, but it was impossible to grasp what he was saying.

Not so with this text.  Brad has done most of the heavy lifting for us.  Don't think this is a fun or fast read; it's not.  But Brad's prose gives us a sense of what Dogen might say if he popped up today and spoke colloquial English.  We'd still think he was weird, but we'd probably get the gist, or at least enough to want more.

If you are a Zen practitioner, if you know who Dogen is but not what he said, if you just want to read a damned fine bit of scholarship written in an unscholarly style, buy this book.

Would you like my politics with that?

Text sent to Dairy Queen regarding my experience at DQ 0023 

Sirs,

When my wife and I arrived at the pickup window at the local DQ, I was dismayed to notice that the server was wearing a "Black Lives Matter" button prominently displayed on her cap.  Whether I believe BLM is a civil rights organization or a domestic terrorist group is beside the point.  Divisive political statements to your customers are bad for business.

It is jarring and off putting to have political ideology shoved in my face when all I want and expect is my milk shake or ice cream on a hot July day. 

Would you allow the server to display an NRA button?  How about one supporting the PLO?  Maybe JPFO would be okay with you? Where do you draw the line?

I usually enjoy DQ treats, but I will now forgo them to avoid the unwanted side order of politics with my food.  I find the two together give me indigestion.  My money will be spent on one of your competitors who more wisely keep their food unseasoned with the odor of politics.

numbers don't lie but media does

We are finally, finally, finally seeing someone admit what I've been saying for weeks: the death rate from Covid-19 is dropping.  The case counts are indeed going up, mostly because of an increase in testing rates.

But - and this is the important part that most everyone is missing - increased cases do NOT mean increased infections.  It means we are finally finding all the cases that have been here all along; we just didn't know it before now.

The emphasis on case counts and the implied increase in infection is dishonest reporting or perhaps simple ignorance.  Most reporters aren't good at math.  Hell, most Americans don't understand math and especially statistics.  If they did, they'd be cheering the news that the death rate from Covid-19 is dropping and has been for weeks.

We are beating this disease, but the media doesn't want to know that, doesn't understand it, or refuses to tell you.  The dam is beginning to break, however.  Here's a link to one story that gets it right:

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/07/15/carefree_mis-reporting_of_virus_deaths_from_alarmist_media_498986.html

the politics of masks

First, a definition: mask in the text below refers to Covid-19 mouth and nose coverings.
 
Making it as simple as I can for the sake of cutting through the politics of mask wearing, let me state my position on wearing a mask in a two-sentence declaration.

1 - I am in favor of me wearing a mask at the present time.
2 - I am not in favor of any government mandate on mask wearing, either requiring or prohibiting them.

I will not dispute or support here any science-based reasons for wearing or not wearing masks, because I'm not arguing science here; I'm arguing politics and public policy. It may appear at first glance that my two numbered statements above are contradictory, but I want to briefly explain why they are not.  Instead, both statements are in harmony with my deeper general principles of the role of government in our lives. 

Those general principles could be summed up by announcing that I consider myself a small "l" libertarian in most situations.  I'm generally in favor of keeping governments as tiny and as unobtrusive as possible.  I'm mostly in favor of personal freedom and personal responsibility in most cases. Given my proclivities, it naturally follows that I do not favor government forcing me to do something, even if I think it's a good idea to do that thing in the abstract.

My position on masks mirrors my position on guns with a similar two-sentence declaration.

1 - I am in favor of me being armed.
2 - I am not in favor of any government mandate on firearms, either mandatory carry or mandatory disarming. 

In both examples, masks and guns, I favor doing what I believe is correct for me in the given situation without any government interference.  My wearing a mask is not a virtue signal of liberalism.  Nor is it any comment on anyone else's choice, and it's most definitely not an assertion on what anyone else should do.

we're discussing the wrong subjects

Following up on a point in my last post, we are mostly all in the wrong arena of ideas.  We should be discussing medical information on Covid-19, not policy recommendations.  As I said before, there is NO political solution to this virus, only medical.

A few people are trying to work on the medical stuff and there's some very interesting information that might (not does, but MIGHT) point us in the direction we need to pursue.  Here's a link to a smart article highlighting what we ought to be discussing instead of masks and lockdowns:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/07/a-highly-qualified-reader-emails-me-on-heterogeneity.html

To summarize a bit the two points:

1)Could differences in severity be explained by genetics?  Our genetics, not that of the virus.  Some diseases, like Epstein-Barr, are only really bad if you have a certain genetic profile.  Otherwise, they're a minor irritant.  There's evidence that this may be the case with Covid-19.  If true, then most of us can safely ignore the disease and get on with our lives, while those truly in danger can take precautions and get the lion's share of the attention they need.  It allows a focused, nuanced approach to fighting Covid-19, rather than an endless, breathless bemoaning of the daily "cases" which don't matter.

2)There are two different strains circulating, the first is worse than the newer one.  Again, there's a lack of media attention to this, but there's mounting evidence in the medical data that the older strain was worse and that the newer strain currently circulating is much milder.  This scenario explains differences between some countries with low death rates and also explains east coast / west coast variations in the US.

This concentration on medical data is mostly absent from the media and definitely isn't being discussed, or probably even understood, by the frightened and ignorant politicians in Georgia who are illegally and Unconstitutionally mandating all sorts of policies that will have little to no effect because this is a medical issue, not a policy issue.

A virus doesn't vote and it won't obey your laws. 

elected officials cannot fix this

When I read things like the following, my hackles raise:

The number of COVID-19 cases in our county is rapidly increasing.  There have been at least 38 new cases identified in our community just since last Friday (July 3rd).  To better illustrate just how quickly the virus is spreading, the new cases since last Friday represent 20% of all cases in the county since we started keeping records around the first of March.  

As of this morning, there are 54 individual homes in the county that contain one or more residents who have been diagnosed with active COVID-19.  There are no specific geographic areas where there are more cases than others, and it appears to be spread pretty much throughout the county.  There are no active cases in any of the nursing homes or assisted living facilities in our community.  

This press release from a Georgia Sheriff goes on in this vein for a bit without really offering much in the way of a solution other than to obey the supposed experts. 

I've said it before and I'll repeat it until you get it: case numbers are bullshit.  They mean almost nothing important.  Deaths, specifically the percentage of deaths caused by the virus over and above baseline deaths is the very definition of an epidemic, per the CDC.  Deaths from Covid-19 are declining and have been for weeks and weeks and weeks to the point where we have very nearly reached a level that would define the end of the epidemic.  That is, the number of deaths is so low that the CDC definition of an epidemic doesn't fit and so we are no longer in one. 

In the ten county health district in which I live, there have been zero deaths for more than a week.  (source: http://www.oconeecountyobservations.org/2020/07/northeast-health-district-adds-83-new.html)

My own charts of the Georgia DPH data show the same decline in mortality rates statewide.  The red line is a rolling 15-day average.  The blue line is a rolling 5-day median.  I use both because I'm not convinced one is a better measure of central tendency than the other, but both are down from earlier peaks.

Case numbers are up because of increased testing, and yes, probably because relaxing standards for group contact, especially in younger populations.  But the danger is when I see someone from the government, like a Sheriff, who is NOT a medical professional nor a statistician, putting out a press release like the one above, it most likely means that official is seeking to justify another Unconstitutional power grab, nothing more.

The idea that there is ANYTHING an elected official can do, especially a law enforcement official, to affect a virus is absurd.  The virus does not obey any laws other than those of nature.  If you believe that we can legislate our way out of this virus, that makes as much sense as demanding that Congress repeal the law of gravity.  The virus will not go away because of legislation.  Nor will it leave just because we hide from it.  There is no law or regulation we can pass that the virus will obey and searching for one is ludicrous.

Take reasonable precautions based on your own adult common sense and stop letting elected officials scare you with numbers out of context, numbers they don't understand and cannot affect.