Pandemic Life 2022

Using data from Johns Hopkins University's interactive dashboard

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed 5.9 million lives globally as of February 28, 2022. More than 940,00 of those deaths have been in the United States.

Currently, approximately 1.4% of known COVID-19 infections in the US have resulted in death. This percentage varies from state to state, however, and in some parts of the country, infections are far more likely to be fatal than in others.

These are the top 10 excuses for not getting vaccinated;

10. Hard for me to get a vaccine  1.9%

9.   Dr hasn't recommended it 9.6%

8.   Don't think covid is a beg threat  25.1%

7.   Other reason  25.0%

6.   Don't know if a vaccine will protect me  26.1%

5.   Plan to wait and see if it's safe  31.0%

4.   Don't believe I need a vaccine  35.3%

3.   Don't trust the government  39.8%

2.   Don't trust covid 19 vaccines  47.5%

1.   Concerned about possible side effects  55.6%

I was really surprised at #9.

I heard someone say the other day, it's hard to trust "the science" when it's been wrong so frequently. Good point. I stand by what I said over a year ago...if they had come out in the beginning and said, we don't know how this is going to play out, we don't know how this is going to affect people, we don't know...but lets try this fill in the blank. I think people would've responded a lot differently. If the effing media hadn't politized the issue, I think people would've responded a lot differently. Oh well. Live and learn I guess.

Reviews

When you buy things, go out to dinner, pick a doctor, do you research them and look at reviews? I do. When I'm looking on Amazon for something, I look at the reviews. I read at least a couple pages of reviews, good and bad, before I decide. I don't usually look at restaurant reviews though. That's too subjective for me. And I don't think I've ever picked a doctor based on their reviews. But I have left a couple reviews on my dentist - he's fabulous!

I think I'm pretty honest when I leave a review. I try to be. Even if it's for something I don't like, I try and find one little nice thing to say, you know, unless they totally suck! The other day, I ordered a personalized gift off of Etsy. It's really pretty. But the name is small and hard to read so I only gave them 4 stars. And I said why in the review. They emailed me and said they strive for complete customer satisfaction and wanted to know how they could've done better, so I would've given them 5 stars. So I replied...they responded with, "thank you for letting me know. I respect your comment but this font is popular nowadays so we are using this on all our products and get hundreds of compliments about it. Please make your review 5 stars, we will appreciate it."  Ummm, NO! That ticked me off. I said the product was lovely, nice quality, etc. but I was disappointed in how they did the name. humph.

Also, you have to be pretty bad for me to write a complaint to a company. I'm more about telling a company when they've done a great job. People don't hear that enough.

Last night, we went to Best Buy and bought a sound bar for the TV. We had one in mind when we went. I could've gotten it off Amazon for $2 less but I don't want to give them ALL my business. Anyway, for the first time, they were not helpful. There were 3 salesmen in that area, just standing around and I had to go to them. The man that opted to help us, was a little condescending. We ended up getting something better than what we had intended but I didn't appreciate being talked down to. Also, there was no one at the cash registers and when we asked if someone could help us, a young woman begrudgingly came to check us out. It was really an unpleasant experience all around. I'm still trying to decide if I want to let Best Buy know that or not.

This is an interesting article about fake reviews, which was really all I originally wanted to talk about!  :-)

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investigates/many-of-those-5-star-reviews-you-see-online-are-totally-fake-yelp-google-facebook-false-accounts/531-f175843b-1316-494a-a746-5bdfcada43fa

guns and death

Yesterday, a landmark, historic settlement was made by the gun manufacturer, Remington. In a suit claiming that the gun manufacturer is responsible for a massacre/mass shooting, it settled out of court for $73 million dollars.

It's a slippery slope, isn't it? No matter what side of the issue you're on. I've had several questions, as a casual news reader. One is, why did they settle instead of go to trial? Did they think they would lose? Did they settle because if they lost it would set a precedent, which would be bad for other gun manufacturers. Now that they've reached a settlement out of court will other gun manufacturers be targeted? The other thing that was really curious to me was, even though this was "breaking news" when it happened, I couldn't find a single headline about it in any news outlet that was in even the top 10! USA Today, Fox News, NY Times, MSN...The way the media covers anything about guns and gun control and the 2nd amendment is so aggressive, I just don't understand why they didn't have a million words to say about this?!!?

Gun related deaths in the US topped 45,000 during the pandemic. (There was a spike in homicides.) Is that a moral issue or a gun issue?

I didn't/don't follow this case but I gathered that part of the suit against them was how they market their firearms. That made me wonder, why is it ok for Anheuser-Busch to market (target) a young audience?

Did you know, drunk drivers cause more than one third of all traffic related deaths. Alcohol related deaths, ie excessive alcohol use, is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths each year. Who is responsible? The drunk driver, the bartender who served them, the alcohol maker, the store they purchased that alcohol from?

According to CDC statistics, drug overdoses  accounted for over 91,000 deaths. Is that a health issue or a big pharma issue? What about the doctors that prescribe the drugs?

Cigarette smoking is estimated to cause 480,000 deaths annually. 

Where is the outrage, exactly??

Tiny things

When my ex-sister-in-law died a couple years ago, my youngest niece took her miniature house. She said she has some nice memories about her mom and working on that house.

Last year she started remodeling it. It needed it. It was in pretty bad shape. I've put together several miniature houses so she hit me up for tips and ideas. I obliged :-) She's doing a fabulous job too. She has a decorating flair and she's good with power tools! She's even given her journey it's own Instagram page and named her house, 918 Victoria Lane. You can find it on IG at victoria.lane.mini  

Occasionally she'll send me a text with a picture of some miniature food and say, Hi Aunt Cindy, isn't this sooooo cute?! I can't say no, so I'll make it for her. So far she's gotten this;

With more requests backed up. It's fun. I like doing it. 

Anyway, it's really made me want to do the keeper house I still have in a box in my craft room. It's 3 stories with a shop on the bottom. It's so awesome! I've had it for about 15 years!!! I don't even know why I haven't put it together. I guess it's a little intimidating.  And it can be expensive. But I even go to the Miniature House Museum's attic sale whenever they have it and but all sorts of cute little tiny things for a fraction of the cost! I really just need to jump in though. I love tiny things. I love miniature houses! 

It's hard to get started on things sometimes. 

D.E.I.

 D.E.I. stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

It's a "thing" now, where I work. We now have a DEI committee. What is their purpose you ask?

The purpose of the DEI committee is to develop and promote strategies and best practices within the realms of racial, social, sexual, and gender diversity. The DEI Committee further serves as an opportunity for non-committee members a place to provide suggestions and challenges for the DEI.

Before the committee was created, I was invited to sit in on the discussion about DEI and the need for a committee. We were given handouts. The first is the definitions and the 2nd was part another visual aid.

For now, I want to talk about the 2nd image. We were all asked if we had comments about this graphic. Almost everyone did. But the one comment that stuck out for me was, well this is a nice graphic but why are all the kids black?  Which of course made someone else say, this makes it look like African Americans are always on the outside and they don't have the opportunity to see the game from the stands. In my head, I thought, the big kid is just a jerk for not giving his box to the little guy. My next thought was, boys are stinkers, trying to watch the game over the fence. It didn't even occur to me that were black. Apparently, I'm part of the problem...that racism is so ingrained in our culture that I can't recognize that it's a problem.

The point of the graphic is; Equality = everyone benefits from the same supports. Equity = Everyone gets the supports they need.

A better graphic would have been;

Regardless, I didn't like being told that I was part of the problem because I'm white. I don't like feeling bad for black people because I'm white. I've had a couple honest conversations with black people about this. It's been interesting and sometime enlightening. Clearly, I can't know what it's like to be a person of color. I know what discrimination feels like though - because I'm a woman and now because I'm a senior. But I don't know what racial discrimination feels like. I'm naïve, I know that. I'm not that naïve though. I know there are more people than I can imagine, that still feel negatively towards people of color. I'm not one of them though. And I would be delighted to have conversations about it...but not hateful, argumentative, mean spirited ones.