247 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/72bfb301be82a9ec9c818636011e93a2.pdf 8e07504fd539b55f92c2dccac9992635 PDF Text Text Day 138 by windoworks Yesterday was hot. It felt like 98F in the late afternoon. Murphy does not do well with the heat and we discovered that if unsupervised in our back garden, she eats sticks and twigs and stuff. Usually it causes no problem but yesterday she threw up her breakfast and then spent some time dry heaving. So after a quick consultation by phone with our vet, Craig took her to the Urgent Care vet on the other side of the city. They had a desk set up outside and they came out and took her inside while Craig gave her details to the assistant outside. Then he came home. Eight hours later he drove back and picked her up, after she had a thorough examination, a nausea shot and X-rays to make sure she hadn’t eaten anything like a pebble. It cost $524. Dogs are expensive. Things continue apace in Portland, Oregon. Over the last couple of nights, men with leaf blowers have joined the Moms and the Vets. Apparently the tear gas they are using (which I read is banned in war due to its possibly toxic nature) hangs in the air and gloms onto clothing, hair, masks, shoes etc. Men using leaf blowers can blow that cloud away or even back towards the federal troops. Then the troops brought their own leaf blowers and it has become a leaf blower competition. A group of self-identified Portland dads, inspired by the “Wall of Moms” that forms a protective human shield at the front of nightly protests near the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, set out to help clear the air at protests by arming themselves with leaf blowers. They are known collectively as “DadBloc” and “LeafBlower Dads” and turn up to the protests wearing orange shirts to compliment the moms’ yellow ones. Each night, their numbers have swelled. On Friday, they were joined by other burgeoning groups — the veteran-led Wall of Vets, green-shirted Teachers Against Tyrants, the pizza-box carrying ChefBloc, health-care workers in scrubs and Lawyers for Black Lives, who turned up at the protest in suits and ties. President Trump sent dozens of federal law enforcement officers to Portland — a move that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D), who was tear-gassed with the crowd earlier this week, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) have likened to a hostile occupation.Washington Post But all joking aside, this has become a much darker thing. My friend Gladysin sent me an article written by a woman who was shot with a rubber bullet. Here’s some of what she said: Professor Maureen Healy is the chair of the history department at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. She teaches Modern European History, with a specialization in the history of Germany and Eastern Europe (and the rise of fascism). I wanted to, and will continue to, exercise my First Amendment right to speak. Federal troops have been sent to my city to extinguish these peaceful protests. I was not damaging federal property. I was in a crowd with at least a thousand other ordinary people. I was standing in a public space. By professional training �and long years of teaching, I am knowledgeable about the historical slide by which seemingly vibrant democracies succumbed to authoritarian rule. Militarized federal troops are shooting indiscriminately into crowds of ordinary people in our country. We are on that slide. It dawned on me when I was in the ER, and had a chance to catch my breath (post tear gas): my government did this to me. My own government. I was not shot by a random person in the street. A federal law enforcement officer pulled a trigger that sent an impact munition into my head. From FaceBook. I’m just going to let you think about that for a minute. This is where we are - in the middle of an uncontrollable, global pandemic with an executive branch of our government who are using that pandemic to sow distrust while lining their own pockets. You know, words failed me months ago. Consider this: �And this next one is extremely confronting. ��The next 3 take always about schools reopening. 4. Schools need well-developed protocols for reopening and for steps to follow if the virus appears in a school. Schools need to be transparent about their procedures for taking students in each day — temperature checks, hand washing, sanitation procedures and the like — as well as procedures to be followed in the event the virus strikes a student or staff member. Protocols for both intake and treatment need to be agreed on in advance, not invented amid a crisis. 5. Schools should consider strategies that encourage cocooning, staggered drop-off and pickup times, social distancing on buses and making best use of ventilation. If children can be “cocooned” during the school day into small groups of 6 to 10 students, it is easier to quarantine the “cocooned” group than the entire �school if an infection appears. Staggered times of arrival and departure and staggered days for students in different grades might make sense. Everyone on school buses must wear a mask while students are socially distanced.Ventilation is another important consideration. Improving HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) filtering, opening windows if needed and even holding classes outside (in playgrounds inside tents) are all sensible precautions, if possible. 6. Is a vaccine likely to bail us out? The issue of a vaccine needs to be off the table right now. There is no possibility of a vaccine appearing in the next 6-8 weeks. The last takeaways tomorrow. Statistics from yesterday: US new cases - 58,631. Michigan - 1,041 new cases and Kent County - 134 new cases. For the US this is about a 10,000 drop but for Michigan and Kent County, this is a sudden rise. In Australia they had 549 new cases yesterday and 532 of those were in the state of Victoria. Most of the new cases in Australia are from community transmission. And its time for an Oliver photograph. I think we all need one. ��He does love a tambourine. I look at his face and think - what does he know of pandemics, and climate change and racism? Mostly, all he knows is pure joy in the simple things. We left Wales and drove across the Severn Bridge to England. We then drove all the way down to Truro, Cornwall to visit our niece Elle and her partner Terry. Terry had just had hernia surgery, so Elle was our tour guide for our stay. ����From the top: crossing the bridge to England; with Elle on her favorite beach and walking the cliffs. We had arrived in Poldark country. More Cornwall tomorrow. So thats it. The start of another week. I’ll leave you with this. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-07-27_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-138 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-27 Title A name given to the resource Day 138 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5f98e68c989285161fdb73189aa003aa.pdf ce7e69a1f6c13be3c42ea2f8334816eb PDF Text Text Day 139 by windoworks So here we are. Yesterday a very significant thing happened. Grand Rapids Public Schools announced that classes would be online for the first 9 weeks of the semester. That’s 26 schools. Some background: when the Women’s City Club was housed at the Sweet House, they used GRPS as an indication of how dangerous a winter snowstorm was going to be. If GRPS closed all schools for the day, the WCC closed. In fact this was written in the general handout for WCC members. In some ways, GRPS is a bellwether indicator. (Bellwether: an indicator or predictor. The word originally described the lead sheep in a flock �that wears a bell around its neck - now you know). So, my question is - if GRPS has decided its too dangerous to teach face to face, what will the local colleges and nearby school districts decide? Here’s some points from the WoodTV8 interview with GRPS Superintendent Leadriane Roby: • We said that the health, safety and the well-being of our students and staff would be our top priority in our decision-making,” Roby said. “I believe starting with distance learning is practicing what we preach and is by far our safest approach to the start of the 2020-21 school year.” • The first nine weeks of school accounts for the first marking period, which ends Oct 21. During the first period, Roby said the district will “continuously assess our decision” and will work out plans for shifting to hybrid or in-person learning. • GRPS said each student will get the devices they need to take classes and the district will ensure kids can get online, including the distribution of hot spots. The district is preparing “digital literacy training” for parents so they can help their kids through the start of school. A Family Helpdesk will be available to provide technical support and troubleshoot connection problems. • Programs to feed kids will also still be in place. And while we’re all digesting that, here’s a piece from Jean Molot who is teaching a summer program in New Haven, Conn. To explain to people the reality of being in a classroom all day, I ask them to imagine that they work in an office building with 900 other people, most of whom work in groups of about 20, in spaces the size of a very large conference room. Most office workers remember to stay in their designated seats six feet apart, but sometimes they get up and move about the room, or move their chairs closer to each other so that they can hear better or share their work. Most people remember that they must keep their masks on all day, but some forget. Some remove their masks to rub their noses or drink from their water bottle and then forget to put their mask back on. Some of the younger office workers refuse to wear one at all. I ask these people, would you be comfortable working in that conference room with 20 other people for over six hours a day, five days a week? If not, how can we expect teachers to do the same? Washington Post. �As a former teacher - YES! And while still on the topic of schools reopening, here are the last 3 takeaways: 7. Teachers in schools need protection but so do nonteaching staff. All adults in the school need to focus on masks, hand washing and social distancing. Cafeteria workers, counselors and administrative staff might not have extended interactions with students, but they require protection, perhaps in the form of face guards and Plexiglass barriers. Break rooms, where teachers and staff remove masks and perhaps eat together in confined spaces, need attention. 8. Extracurricular activities are going to be an extremely challenging area for school safety. We have already seen community outbreaks in choral groups and choirs, activities involving expelling a lot of air. We may need to put a hold on them. Band and orchestra don’t present the same problem, but frequently instruments are exchanged, so that may be a challenge. A golf team doesn’t have the same risks as basketball, football or soccer, where players are exerting themselves in close proximity to each other. These teams will be major concerns. 9. The costs of attending to all this are astronomical, at a time when state and local revenues will decline due to the crippling unemployment and recession accompanying the pandemic. The Council of Chief State School Officers has estimated that schools will need between $150 billion and $250 billion to ensure that schools can do what is required to open safely. Congress and the federal government need to step up. Fully �98 percent of those following the town hall agreed that Congress should provide additional emergency covid-19 relief funding for K-12 public schools. The maelstrom of the virus continues to swirl around us unchecked and while that’s happening, political mayhem abounds. �Much of the world is now coping with a coronavirus resurgence. The number of new daily cases has risen more than 20 percent in both Europe and Canada over the past week. It’s up about 40 percent in Australia and Japan. Hong Kong reported 145 cases yesterday, its highest one-day count yet and the sixth straight day of more than 100 new cases. All of these increases are �worrisome reminders that crushing the virus is not a one-time event, at least not until a vaccine is available. It involves constant vigilance. New York Times Here is our house with the painting almost finished. Craig is beginning work on the lower white section of the north side of the house. The fence in our back garden just needs the gate attached. I will post a photo of the completed fence in a day or so. And here’s the vegetable garden before Craig harvested the lettuce crop and I shared it out to our neighbors. Very yummy. The tomatoes are beginning to ripen. �This was timely and was sent to me from my daughter Zoe. I have edited it for length, With all our lives changing because of coronavirus, you could be experiencing disenfranchised grief When you ask someone how they are at the moment, you might get a stoic response in which they compare their feelings to people who are really struggling. "Things are hard, but they are worse for others," is the way it often goes. In the face of an extraordinary crisis that shows no sign of easing soon, I suspect many of us are getting good at minimising our own experiences of the pandemic. But what if somebody asked you: What are you missing most right now? What has COVID-19 and its many consequences taken away from you? Chances are, you can name at least one loss that has caused you pain. Some of these losses may not be so obvious or easily discussed such as: a trip to visit a friend or relative, or the deferral of medical treatment for an ailment that's been problematic. Perhaps you miss the way people used to greet each other casually without fear of breaching a 1.5-metre barrier, or the feeling of your mum or dad's embrace. If you are feeling a sense of loss, but haven't found the words or the moment to acknowledge it, you may be experiencing disenfranchised grief. Disenfranchised grief refers to experiences of loss which might not �be recognised, either by the person or by others. As with recognised grief when somebody dies, disenfranchised grief is accompanied by disbelief and shock, yearning for reality to be different or as it was before the loss, and then uncertainty and sadness as reality grows. The process can be more difficult because unrecognised losses tend not to attract increased social support or public ceremonies or rituals. These experiences can be isolating and induce powerlessness, rather than the problem-solving that is needed to reduce the psychological pain. Just as knowing the signs of anxiety and depression can help people recognise and begin to manage these emotions, appreciating the impact of disenfranchised grief might help us understand our experience. Abc.net.au So I want all you readers to ask yourself now, what is it I miss the most?Any answer will be correct. Oliver! ��Wait, what? Cornwall. ����Our first stop of the day was St Ives. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives? Sorry, I just had to put that in there. It was a wild stormy day and we comforted ourselves by having the proper cream tea. So tomorrow then. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-07-28_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-139 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-28 Title A name given to the resource Day 139 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3cc49100f5f57b92a5ca3e18b87a8da3.pdf 296c81a6af658646e97523ae49211b2a PDF Text Text Day 14…. by windoworks Today it will be 56F (just over 13C) and sunny. Now I know those of you who deal in Celsius that seems cold, but to us here in Michigan, thats a spring day and its time to get the porch furniture out. Also the trees are starting to bud very slowly. It’s going to be harder to keep us inside once the weather improves. This morning I watched Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York State give a 20 minute talk with an excellent power point which was streamed online to all Americans. The situation in his state is dire. His experts are predicting a massive spike of the virus in 14-21 days time. He was pleading for federal help, as are all the governors. He said FEMA sent the state 400 ventilators but they need 30,000. Its staggering and he predicts it will happen in other states, just later on than New York. The Administration seems to think it comes down to a choice between human life and the economy. In Texas the governor there thinks all of us over 60 should be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the economy of the state. Let me just say: I’m never visiting Texas ever again. ��Yesterday ZB FaceTimed with OB and we watched him play for a long time while we talked and then we watched him sit in the high chair in her kitchen while she fed him breakfast. Afterwards CB said to me: its almost as though we were there. And it is but I just can’t kiss that crease where his neck meets his torso just under his ear. Maybe I’ll get ZB to kiss him for me. In the photo above, this is his ‘throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care’ pose. In NZ ZL and his wife AW are locked down at home and AW is experiencing cabin fever. Yesterday I had to resist a temptation to lie on the floor and moan. I may succumb today. how are you feeling? So, today’s flashback photo: This is ZB and me in Maine on a road trip almost exactly one year ago today. At this point ZB was 5 months pregnant with OB and really he was just as active then as he is today at almost 8 months old. We spent a week driving around Maine in a rental car which reassembled a tank. I was the driver and it was almost as hard driving it as it was getting in and out of the dammed thing. The weather was amazing and we really enjoyed ourselves. Look at us, we had no idea what was ahead. Well, as always - STAY INSIDE. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-03-25_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-14 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-25 Title A name given to the resource Day 14…. Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d27a9d741bc8adbd31693d9ec081eeb1.pdf 44ac4e60552650a7317fa4418621538c PDF Text Text Day 140! 20 weeks! 20 weeks by windoworks I’ve been writing this post so long that there are a huge number of new emojis and Gmail has introduced Google Meet. Two houses on our block have been repainted with two more starting soon. Two houses have new hot water systems installed, people are refurbishing their front porches and rethinking their backyard space. Several houses have made the lawn strip by the road into gardens - the list goes on. Ten years ago in November, Craig and I became American citizens. To become a citizen, you must first apply for a green card. We had help from a legal team recommended by GVSU. Once you get your green card, you must wait for 4 years before beginning your citizenship application. Again, we used a legal team (you can do it yourself, but sometimes Immigration has tricky questions). We were fingerprinted, tested for AIDS, photographed and investigated. We had to read the Constitution and be ready for questions. In the interview (in Detroit at 7:30am) I was asked to read aloud, and then write a sentence that was dictated to me. I had to answer 3 questions from the Constitution and I had to answer (in the affirmative) if I was prepared to bear arms for the United States. And renounce all allegiance to the country of my birth. In the confirmation ceremony we all stood and took the oath of allegiance. I look at this country - my country - today and think: all that study and work and how happy I was to become an American citizen. And I wonder - how many politicians have read (and understood) the Constitution and the Amendments? How many use this as rules not only to live by, but to rule by? When chump was elected, Craig said to me: don’t worry, there are many checks and balances on his power. Apparently, checks and balances are minor irritations to be ignored and the Constitution is easily set aside. But I love my city and my state and especially all my dear friends and neighbors and I worry for all of us. What more could possibly happen if chump wins another 4 years? Thats too awful to contemplate. �From Portland, Oregon. Lets look at this photo for a minute. Here is a young woman in light clothing, she has a sign under her arm, her phone in her hand and a mask (not properly worn). The person facing her is in full battle dress, helmet, face shield and industrial gas mask and is pointing a weapon IN HER FACE. Ask yourself: what threat is this young woman posing? What weapon is she carrying? Words fail me. Pay attention. This may be coming to a city near you. New York Times: Attorney General William Barr clashed with House Democrats in a hostile five-hour hearing. Barr defended the deployment of federal agents in Portland, Ore., saying that “rioters and anarchists” had “hijacked” peaceful demonstrations. And he denied improperly interfering in criminal cases against Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, two allies of President Trump. Democrats portrayed him as a dangerous political enforcer for the president. In the ‘do you think they will pay attention? Category: PORTLAND, Ore.— U.S. District Judge Michael Simon today blocked federal agents in Portland from dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or targeting force against journalists or legal observers at protests. The court’s order, which comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, adds the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service to an existing �injunction barring Portland police from arresting or attacking journalists and legal observers at Portland protests. Under the court order, federal agents also cannot unlawfully seize any photographic equipment, audio- or video-recording equipment, or press passes from journalists and legal observers, or order journalists or legal observers to stop photographing, recording, or observing a protest. ACLU �Good question. In Michigan, the Republican Senate have decided to withhold essential funding to school districts in Lansing, East Lansing, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids because all these districts have decided to �teach online this semester. Because, as Betsy said: children don’t get the virus and they don’t transmit it. And this leads to another topic: rampant misinformation and conspiracy theories. New York Times: Why is the U.S. enduring a far more severe virus outbreak than any other rich country? There are multiple causes, but one of them is the size and strength of right-wing media organizations that frequently broadcast falsehoods. The result is confusion among many Americans about scientific facts that are widely accepted, across the political spectrum, in other countries. Canada, Japan and much of Europe have no equivalent to Sinclair — whose local newscasts reach about 40 percent of Americans — or Fox News. Germany and France have widely read blogs that promote conspiracy theories. “But none of them have the reach and the funding of Fox or Sinclair,” Monika Pronczuk, a Times reporter based in Europe, told me. Fox is particularly important, because it has also influenced President Trump’s response to the virus, which has been slower and less consistent than that of many other world leaders. “Trump repeatedly failed to act to tame the spread, even though that would have helped him politically,” The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has written. The headline on Sargent’s opinion column is: “How Fox News may be destroying Trump’s re-election hopes.” Oh, I sincerely hope that headline remains true. In COVID news; the numbers in Michigan and Kent County seem to keep slowly climbing and yesterday Governor Whitmer said we all need to do even more to help slow the spread down. She has extended the State of Emergency to August 31 and she has been asking for federal funding assistance. Of course, chump won’t authorize it because a) she’s a woman and b) she’s a Democrat. Our chief financial officer then laid out that facts that our state economy is in shambles and with no help from the federal government there is no money for anything, like road repairs etc. And here we are: The Post examined the decision-making of two U.S. leaders who saw covid-19 rage out of control on their watch: President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). DeSantis bragged about his state’s early success against the virus, sidelined scientists and prioritized a political alliance with Trump over his own public health officials — only to see Florida become the pandemic’s global epicenter. As for Trump, even some of his defenders are baffled by his refusal to even attempt to control the national crisis. Several people close to the president told The Post he is hobbled by a penchant for magical thinking and an “almost pathological unwillingness to admit error.” Washington Post. I can hear you all saying: Oliver! Give us some Oliver, please! ��In Cornwall we were staying in a little rabbit warren of a hotel in Truro. Truro is Cornwall’s only city and I didn’t explore it as much as Craig did. ��The streets and the Truro River on a wet weekday morning. ���Bosigran. This is part of a National Park Walk past ruins of tin mines and along cliffs. In the top photo, Craig is standing next to a popular climbing spot - and he would have tried climbing down the cliffs if I hadn’t been there to stop him. The next two photos show ruins of tin mines. Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of England, began in the early Bronze Age, around 2150 BCE, and ended (at least temporarily) with the closure of South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall in 1998. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had become unprofitable. Wikipedia. Tin mining is the thread running through all the Poldark novels and many of the ruins we saw were used in the recent tv series. Cornwall’s coast is wild and exciting and a great place for hikers. More Cornwall tomorrow. I’ll leave you with this, from my brother-in-law: �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-07-29_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-140 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-29 Title A name given to the resource Day 140! 20 weeks! 20 weeks Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a2825c9cb5005e7dccd5783d49459019.pdf 0752e64e96eef24cc610eb4f047bd0fe PDF Text Text Day 141 by windoworks ��So this is where we are. It’s no surprise really. The weather has been spectacular, everything is growing, fruit and vegetables abound, the lake is sparkling clear and warm - and isn’t everything right with the world? Here’s some thoughts about this: COVID-19 has now killed more than 148,000 in the US.. On a typical day in the past week, more than 1,000 people died. But the deluge of grim statistics can dull our collective sense of outrage. And part of that has to do with how humans are built to perceive the world. "With any kind of consistent danger, people get used to situations like that," says Elke Weber, a professor of psychology and of energy and the environment at Princeton University. "When you live in a war zone, after a while, everyday risk becomes just baseline. Our neurons are wired in such a way that we only respond to change. And any state that's constant basically sort of gets washed out. She says that's what's happening now with the coronavirus pandemic. "People have just gotten used to being in this new state of danger, adapting to it, and therefore have not taken enough precaution anymore.” “People are not very good with large numbers. We don't discriminate between 150,000 or 300,000 or 3 million. And so to put it into a context where people can imagine what it means — like to have the probability of dying of COVID — can be very helpful. One way would be to say, well, what towns and cities in the U.S. has COVID wiped out at this point? And an example is Paterson, N.J., it’s gone. It has a population of 145,000.” NPR Stats: US - 63,255 new cases yesterday and 153K deaths in total. Michigan - 996 new cases yesterday and 6,426 deaths in total. Kent County - new cases swing between 45 and 100+ daily. 150 deaths in total. On a side note - I am seeing an ENT specialist next Tuesday and tomorrow I have to have a COVID test beforehand. Then on August 28 I am scheduled for my first cataract surgey and I have to have another COVID test prior to that. Oh well. And here’s this: Right now we are experiencing a national forest fire of COVID that is readily consuming any human wood that's available to burn," says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. When you have something like this happening, there's no way that traditional testing and tracing is going to have any meaningful impact," Osterholm says. "I liken it to trying to plant your petunias in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane." Others agree. At this point, there are just too many new infections occurring too quickly for underfunded, understaffed public health departments to effectively use testing and contact tracing. So if testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine won't work, what will? Given our basic failure to fix the gaps in testing �and the bottlenecks, that really puts us on a path where there is no viable alternative beyond shutdowns. Washington Post �A statue of Roger B Chaffee in downtown Grand Rapids. Roger Bruce Chaffee was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut in the Apollo program. Chaffee was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he became an Eagle Scout. He graduated from Central High School in 1953, and accepted a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship. Wikipedia And look - he’s wearing a mask! I haven’t written about it but 13 days ago, Former United States Representative John Lewis died. He was a civil rights leader of great note and well respected by all - except chump. John Lewis’s body was given the great honor of lying in state in the US Capitol. His funeral today will be attended by George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The eulogy will be delivered by Barack Obama. And all the president of the United States had to say was, "No, no, I won't be going" as he turned and walked off. No recognition , no sympathy, not even a RIP for John Lewis, a brave patriot and incredible human being. It would have taken him about 30 seconds to be kind. He failed. This is a prime example of low-life partisanship. That is not what we need. Here’s what Joe Biden’s tribute to John Lewis after he and his wife Jill attended the lying in: "To John’s son, John Miles, and to his family, friends, staff, and constituents, we send you our love and prayers. Thank you for sharing him with the nation and the world. And to John, march on, dear friend. May God bless you. May you reunite with your beloved Lillian. And may you continue to inspire righteous good trouble down from the Heavens." From a FB post on Michigan Women for Biden From a nearby yard. This made Craig, the Big Historian, very happy. �In The Who knew? Category: The "lipstick index" has been the go-to way for experts to measure how women spend money during hard times. When the economy is up, lipstick sells like hotcakes because it's a relatively inexpensive way for women to treat themselves. But the coronavirus has turned the lipstick index on its head. Why? You guessed it: masks. The two just don’t mix — or they do mix and it’s messy. Maybe it's time for the mani-pedi index since people are buying nail polish and nail care tools for DIY self-care. NPR If you look online there is an amazing video clip of many people, standing in the dark with lights above their heads, chanting Black Lives Matter and waving the lights in unison in Portland Oregon. I can’t post it here but its worth finding and watching. And here is a post from Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown: After my repeated requests, the federal government has agreed to a phased withdrawal of federal officers that have been deployed to the Mark Hatfield United States Courthouse over recent weeks,” Brown said in a statement. “These federal officers have acted as an occupying force, refused accountability, and brought violence and strife to our community.” Washington Post. And just to remind you: �And on a lighter note: As if 2020 wasn’t feeling a little old school already (baking homemade bread, summers with nothing to do) now outdoor movies are popular again. Actor Michael B. Jordan and Amazon Studios are running a drive- �in movie series in 20 cities this summer. And next month, 160 Walmart parking lots will become temporary drive-in movie theaters. At one time, this country had more than 4,000 drive-in movie theaters. Where did they all go? NPR When our children were small we lived very close to a drive in movie site. Unfortunately the nearest drive in movie site is about an hours drive from our house - and the movie doesn’t start until 9:30pm after the sun sets. Maybe they’ll set one up in the Walmart parking lot here. Tomorrow is Oliver’s first birthday. Yesterday he missed daycare because he had a cold and was unhappy. Look carefully at this photo. He’s ‘resting’ while mummy works. (He’s under the end of the coffee table). ��Flashback: remember we visited John o’ Groats at the top of mainland Scotland? Well, we also visited Land’s End at the bottommost tip of England. If you went straight south from here you would end up in Spain. ���And finally, we visited St Michaels Mount. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since approximately 1650. Wikipedia. ��And that was the end of our Cornwall adventures. I liked Cornwall a lot. I’ll leave you with this photo of the Auckland, New Zealand, sky. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-07-30_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-141 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-30 Title A name given to the resource Day 141 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a8084db946112de585c98bfc32a6a550.pdf 9e5ca7c7bf166bb78532f6412bb6a430 PDF Text Text Day 142 by windoworks President Trump drew immediate rebukes from Republicans and Democrats alike on Thursday after floating the prospect of delaying the November election and claiming without evidence that widespread mail balloting would be a “catastrophic disaster” leading to fraudulent results. The U.S. Constitution gives the power to regulate the “time, place and manner” of general elections to Congress, while states control the dates of primary elections. Nowhere is the president granted such �power. In addition, the Constitution spells out a hard end to a president’s and vice president’s terms on Jan. 20 in the year following a presidential election, whether an election is held or not. Even if Congress voted to delay the general election, the electoral college is still required to elect a president under federal law. If lawmakers changed that too, Trump and Vice President Pence would still be required to leave office by noon on Jan. 20. With no successor, the speaker of the House of Representatives, currently Pelosi, would be next in line. Washington Post It’s 94 days until November 3. In Michigan we have a primary election Tuesday August 4. Craig and I have already voted by mail in ballot and then we put our ballots in the official mail box on Ottawa. We will do the same with our ballots for November 3, because that way there’s no delay in the office receiving them. You can look online to see if and when your ballot was received. I’ve checked that mine was received. I am happy to share this next post from the Ingham County Clark. And here are some of the plans being put in place if Joe Biden wins the presidency �Executive orders would be signed, thick pieces of proposed legislation sent to Congress, phone calls placed to foreign leaders, international agreements reentered. New ethics guidelines would be instituted for the White House and new inspectors general would take up oversight positions. As former vice president Joe Biden hones his list of what to tackle on his first day were he to win the White House, he has pledged a portfolio of actions that would impact a wide and diverse array of American life. Biden representatives already have held preliminary discussions with top House and Senate Democrats about what to prioritize, according to campaign and congressional aides. Washington Post. Yesterday the funeral for John Lewis was held. This morning Craig and I watched Barack Obama give the eulogy. He spoke for 40 minutes. Honestly, I cried through most of it. He used words and sentences and whole paragraphs. He never once talked about how great he (Obama) was. My feelings were mixed: on the one hand we lived in the US for 8 amazing years under his measured guidance and on the other hand we’ve lived for 3 1/2 years under his unfortunate successor. It’s like the very best and then the very worst. If you are an American citizen and you are reading this - get out and vote for the BLUE WAVE - from the bottom all the way to the top. And remember: we the people elect our representatives to work for us - not the other way around. Lets do something to support the younger people coming behind us. They don’t deserve to have to fix our mistakes. If you have time today, find Obama’s eulogy on YouTube. You won’t be sorry. Here’s a piece about a vaccine: The development of a coronavirus vaccine won’t end this pandemic overnight. Instead, it’ll merely mark “the beginning of the end.” 1. A vaccine won’t make life go back to normal instantly. A vaccine, when it is available, will mark only the beginning of a long, slow ramp down. And how long that ramp down takes will depend on the efficacy of a vaccine, the success in delivering hundreds of millions of doses, and the willingness of people to get it at all. 2. The rollout of a treatment would likely be complex … Logistically, manufacturers will have to make hundreds of millions of doses while relying, perhaps, on technology never before used in vaccines and competing for basic supplies such as glass vials. Then the federal government will have to allocate doses, perhaps through a patchwork of state and local health departments with no existing infrastructure for vaccinating adults at scale. 3. … and political. If the pandemic so far is any indication, a vaccination program is likely to take place against a backdrop of partisanship and misinformation. The Atlantic And I heard yesterday that there will have to be 2 doses for efficacy. Here is a piece from NPR: �On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus — then unnamed — to be a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." The virus, first reported in China in late 2019, had started to spread beyond its borders, causing 98 cases in 18 countries in addition to some 7,700 cases in China at the time. Six months later, the tiny coronavirus has spread around the world, infecting more than 16 million people worldwide and killing more than 650,000. It is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020. What was it about this coronavirus — later named SARS-CoV-2 — that made it the one to spark a global pandemic? It's a super-fast spreader … One of the novel coronavirus's biggest advantages is how easily it spreads from human to human, The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that infects the sinuses, throat, lungs — all parts of the body involved with breathing. As a result, the virus can be readily passed onward through breath and spittle expelled from the nose and mouth. All it takes to introduce the illness to a new continent is a single person who travels there while infectious. It's transmittable even with no symptoms Even before symptoms develop, infected people can spread this virus by speaking, singing, coughing and breathing out virus-laden droplets in close proximity to others. A lot of the transmission is from asymptomatic, [presymptomatic]or mildly symptomatic people. The severity of symptoms puts a strain on health systems Even though some people who are infected have no symptoms or mild symptoms, the novel coronavirus can inflict serious damage. This coronavirus has the capacity to cause really debilitating respiratory disease and even death for a higher proportion of infected people compared with the flu. The world has never dealt with a pandemic caused by a highly dangerous coronavirus before. This means everyone in the world is likely susceptible to it. And that lack of knowledge about treatments and control has contributed to the virus's ability to spread. Unlike flu, which has been known to researchers for centuries, this novel coronavirus has required researchers to figure out everything from scratch — how it spreads, who's most likely to get sick from it and how to combat it with drugs and vaccines. NPR From my son, who is locked down in Melbourne Australia, where the daily cases continue to increase - a Halo Moon. ��Yesterday was Oliver’s first birthday. Oliver, Zoe and Oliver’s dad, Christian, went to Taronga Zoo. Craig and I were sad not to be there but he loved the bongo drums we sent him. I think he was confused by everyone singing that same song to him all day long. ��On to Langport, Somerset. Years ago Jill and her first husband lived next door to us in Sydney. When we are visiting the UK we always try to fit in a visit to Jill. ����From Craig’s early morning walk - the bridge over the river Parrett and geese. Lastly, Jill and I at the bottom of her gorgeous garden. Our adventures at Highclere Castle tomorrow. Today I’ll leave you with an impressive sign for our governor: We love you, Big Gretch! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-07-31_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-142 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-31 Title A name given to the resource Day 142 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/422f45402921981fe7fbce663ab0fa65.pdf 9f3f1bb1cd1e87af5b2280a50feb8254 PDF Text Text Day 143 and August 1. by windoworks We were talking to Zar, our oldest, who lives in Auckland New Zealand with his wife Alva. We were discussing our hope to visit New Zealand and Australia next year during our summer, to catch up with all the family. Zar pointed out that unless things improve dramatically , we might have to quarantine for 14 days in Auckland. The NZ government has rented at least one hotel and installed security guards and 2 6 foot fences around it. You are tested on Day 3 and again on Day 12. If you test positive, they move you to a special isolation premises until the virus is over. This is for incoming relatives or New Zealanders returning home. You have to pay $3000NZ for one person (or $4000 total for 2), for the hotel costs which include 3 meals a day. You might be allowed to spend some time in an exercise room but otherwise, you are confined to your hotel room. And then after a 2 week visit with our NZ family (post quarantine), we would fly on to Australia and repeat the exact same thing there. Think about this: to the best of my knowledge, people returning to the States are asked to self isolate at home. There’s no facility for quarantine and its strictly an honor system. At the same time, the US government has realized that they can’t afford the cost of repatriation that they paid out for thousands of Americans to fly home at the onset of the virus, and now they’re billing people $10,000 each. Perhaps by May next year there will be a readily available vaccine and this will all change. In the meantime, here’s this: The United States reported just over 1,400 fatalities in 24 hours. That’s about one per minute. It’s our highest daily death toll in two months. California, North Carolina and Idaho also broke their single-day coronavirus fatality records. Over 150,000 Americans have died since February because of the novel coronavirus, according to our tracker. Daily new cases over the past few days are more than double what they were during the previous peak from April. Washington Post �Said no scientist, ever. The coronavirus is spreading inside American homes. New evidence suggests that covid-19 is following younger people home from work or social outings, then infecting older and more vulnerable members of the household. “Front-line caregivers, elected officials and experts in Houston, South Florida and elsewhere say they are seeing patterns of hospitalization and death that confirm fears this would happen,” our health desk wrote. Much of the country could soon see case surges like those already devastating the South, the White House's top infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci warned Wednesday. “Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana … are starting to show that very subtle increase in percent positives among the total tested, �Fauci told ABC News. “Which is a surefire hint that you may be getting into the same sort of trouble with those states that the Southern states got into trouble with.” The dire situation in the United States is often blamed on premature attempts to reopen the economy, but many experts think it has as much to do with public aversion to masks. “Faulty guidance from health authorities, a cultural aversion to masks and a deeply polarized politics have all contributed. So has a president who resisted role modeling the benefits of face coverings, and who belittled those who did,” our health and politics desks wrote. “The result, experts say, is a country that squandered one of its best opportunities to beat back the coronavirus pandemic this spring and summer.”Washington Post. You know some mornings the news divides itself into dire, more dire and direst of all. When John Lewis was days from death, he wrote a piece that he asked to be published after he died. Here’s a paragraph from it. Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself. Yesterday was Oliver’s birthday party. To be safe, Zoe and Christian held it in a nearby park. Here are 3 photos to lighten your day. �One of his favorite toys is a box of blocks - so thats his cake! It’s all edible. �And these two made me laugh ���In other news: The coronavirus pandemic prompted Saudi Arabia to limit access to Mecca, where many Muslims take a pilgrimage this time of year known as the hajj. So Mona Eldadah created a miniature version of the hajj in Sandy Spring, Maryland, done by car to keep people safe from COVID-19. Eldadah likens it to a drive to see Christmas lights to help you "get in the festivities of the season." This innovation is part of a trend across religions of looking for new ways of keeping the faith. One Los Angeles cantor presided over a "Car Mitzvah" celebration in a parking lot. And many churches have been hosting drive-in services. NPR And speaking of schools opening again: Kids and the coronavirus A new study suggests that children can carry at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as adults — suggesting they are likely to spread the virus, as well. As schools and universities plan for the new academic year, and administrators grapple with complex questions about how to keep young people safe, a new report about a coronavirus outbreak at a sleepaway camp in Georgia provides fresh reasons for concern. The camp implemented several precautionary measures against the virus, but stopped short of requiring campers to wear masks. The virus blazed through the community of about 600 campers and counselors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday. The staff and counselors gathered at the overnight camp in late June. Within a week of the camp orientation, a teenage counselor developed chills and went home. The camp, which the C.D.C. did not name, started sending campers home the next day, and shut down a few days later. By then, 76 percent of the 344 campers and staffers whose test results were available to C.D.C. researchers had been infected with the virus — nearly half the camp. New York Times. Well thats certainly not reassuring. Yesterday with the wooden fence finished, Craig removed the chain link gates from our driveway. He then spent ages trying to remove the 2 poles and wood support (and broke his hammer in the process). Then TJ came home and removed the metal poles with his angle grinder and the wooden post with his electric saw. It looks wonderful! ��We walked in a local cemetery and met a woman who was looking for a wild turkey that lives there. She said she feeds it every day and it comes when it hears her car! ��I’m standing in front of Herpolsheimer’s Obelisk. He owned a department store in downtown Grand Rapids starting in the late 1800s. Herpolsheimer's was also featured in the 2004 film, The Polar Express. The film's "Hero Boy" has a picture from Herpolsheimer's of himself ripping the fake beard off the store's Santa Claus. Later, as the boy is riding the train to the North Pole, the "Know-It-All kid" exclaims "Hey, Herpolsheimer's! Herpolsheimer's!" as the train passes the store in what is presumably downtown Grand Rapids. The children aboard the train admire the store's window displays as they pass, with the hero boy scoffing at an obviously animatronic Santa placing presents in one display. Wikipedia. I must be honest and say, I don’t know if this grave is for THE Herpolsheimer, but I thought I’d include the reference to the Polar Express. I had organized for us to visit Highclere Castle before we left home in June. It was expensive, but I bought tickets for a ‘private’ tour with gift bags and high teas (with 48 other people). It was a gorgeous, cold day and one that will live in my memory. �������Highclere Castle is the house used to portray Downton Abbey in the TV series and the recent film. We toured the first and second floors before adjourning to the converted stables for high tea (gluten free of course, Madam). After that we were free to wander some of the extensive grounds. No photos inside the house but Craig took one of a poster of them shooting a scene. It was amazing to wander around the house from a TV series that I had watched. The final photo was taken from our hotel room in Heathrow and marked our last night in the UK. Tomorrow we resume our adventure in France. Today I’ll leave you with this. It seems appropriate. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-01_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-143-and-August Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-01 Title A name given to the resource Day 143 and August 1 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/94103ec2ecb857edddfb7c5d51c98e82.pdf 40a425c6793bd324abc5c3524983bbeb PDF Text Text Day 144 by windoworks My son Zar sent me an update regarding New Zealand and the quarantine restrictions. I quote: the government has 32 hotels, in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch - and one dedicated quarantine facility. When they’re full, the flights stop (this is what you’ve seen recently) - when people finish their isolation and more rooms open up, flights are able to resume. Also the charges for isolation ($3000NZ per person) require a law change so will come in after the election. It’s a contentious issue - the charges will probably only bring in $10m, a drop in the bucket against the total cost (so far) of $487m Also, the $10,000 repatriation fee for US citizens returning earlier in the year is for a family not per individual. In Victoria where they reported 671 new cases overnight and 7 new deaths, the state has declared a state of disaster and imposed new lockdown measures immediately. Melbourne has a nighttime curfew from 8pm to 5am. Residents will only be allowed to shop and exercise within 3 miles of their home. Exercise outside the home will only be for 1 hour at a time and only one person from each household will be allowed to shop for essentials at a time. And masks outside the home are mandatory. This lockdown is scheduled until at least September 13. Here’s what Asher did yesterday: �He was going for first prize in the locked down, staving off boredom cake decorating competition. So here’s how creative we can all be. Some more tomorrow : From the New York Times Arts & Recreation • The She Jazz Project in South Florida — which tries to address gender disparity in jazz — is holding auditions for musicians between the ages of 14 and 20. Each musician will rehearse in a separate tent, nestled in a botanical garden in a park, Alana Perez wrote. • The public library in Morton, Ill., is hosting outdoor browsing sessions in its garden while the library building remains closed. “With mobile devices, patrons can check out items and enjoy browsing, something they miss with only placing holds and doing curbside pick up,” Alissa Williams wrote. • TJ Clark is a volunteer actor at a local community theater’s “driveway cabaret” in Grand Rapids, Mich. Teams of performers drive to patrons’ homes and put on 45 minute cabaret performances in their driveways and yards. A flagged off area keeps the performers at least 10 feet away from their audience. Performances include songs, tap dancing, and even seven family members all performing together. There’s now a waiting list with over 200 houses for a potential second run in August. �Work • Adrianne Mathiowetz, a portrait photographer, has found a way to keep doing sessions with newborns: “The parents stay in their homes with the windows closed. I walk around their house for different angles and shout instructions to them through the glass about where to be for the best light,” she said. “I like that I can’t pose anyone too much. We do a lot of pointing and gesturing, and then they just exist in that space with their new person. I like these images more than any previous newborn photos I’d taken.” • “I’m an attorney in Milwaukee,” wrote Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton. “When in-person meetings have to be held, often there is no reason why staff meetings, client meetings and witness interviews have to be conducted indoors. We’ve held several of these outdoors. Find a shady spot, or open-sided shelter, with a picnic table. Two people can sit at the picnic table in a socially distanced way, and if there needs to be other people involved in the meeting, have lawn chairs for them.” • Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist in Berkeley, Calif., is holding sessions with clients in a forest, with chairs eight feet apart. “In addition to the benefits of intimate, deep conversation, we are enjoying the calming effects of nature — what the Japanese call forest bathing,” Frankel said. “For winter I plan to buy a see-through tent I can use to continue working this way.” • Marti Macon, a massage therapist in Winston-Salem, N.C., created a treatment space for clients on her screened porch. “There are obvious drawbacks such as summer heat and intermittent suburban neighborhood sounds,” Marti wrote, but “all things considered, it has been a great solution and I am already trying to figure out how to continue it into the fall and winter!” • Kathleen Kaloudis, a mental health counselor in Salt Lake City, has started doing sessions outdoors as well. “I have a handful of clients, mostly teens, that are not comfortable and resistant to the video option,” she said. “We meet outdoors at a large park, in a remote corner, in the shade with folding chairs for our sessions. This has worked remarkably well.” • Rebekah Richards, a piano teacher in Saint Paul, Minn., has created a studio in her garage, with two digital pianos 10 feet apart. The pianos and benches are sanitized after each student leaves and the teacher uses a laser pointer to maintain distance. Everyone wears a mask, and the chirping of cardinals adds background music. A large chalk-drawn music staff adorns the driveway for students to explore music notation. The argument over schools opening continues. A school reopened in Indiana, and then closed for quarantine within hours. I read a long article yesterday about colleges promising to open at least in a hybrid form, waiting until all fees are paid and then reverting to online classes only. I think what bothers me about face to face teaching is that the burden is on all teachers, professors and ancillary staff to constantly police the students re social distancing, hand washing and all day mask wearing. And lets consider mask wearing. If we are inundated with ‘Karens’ and ‘Chads’ across the world - that is coherent, seemly intelligent people who can string a sentence together - and they won’t wear a mask no matter what, how do we expect children and young adults to comply. Here’s an interesting thing. A sometime intern of mine from years ago, is a friend on FaceBook. This person posts photos about once a week of �group gatherings in which faces are pressed side by side for the photos - no social distancing and never a mask in sight. There is never an explanation (we’ve all been tested and are virus free, for example) I find these photos worrying and unnerving. Remember I told you about the summer camp in Georgia? This morning I watched one of the dads interviewed and he said the camp sent them videos of preparations and every person attending the camp (staff and children) had to be tested for the virus first. His son was in a pod for sleeping, well apart from other pods. The only thing they didn’t do was have the children wear masks. All staff members did. Over half of the 600 children and staff tested positive. It just takes one infected person. ��What if indeed. Oliver’s other grandmother, Mimi in the mountains (I’m Mimi in the States), sent Zoe this and she forwarded on to me for the blogpost: ��Our son and daughter in Australia are working from home. They both think this could continue for some months. Zoe can go into the office one day every 2 weeks if she likes - but this may change as the virus seems to be increasing in Sydney. In New Zealand Zar and Alva are back in the workplace but Zar has the option of working from home some days. Here’s this thought: Could working from home become a permanent thing? Maybe, if you work in the tech world. Google announced on Monday that their employees can work from home for at least another year — a sign that the technology industry is expecting disruption from the pandemic to linger for a long time. Facebook, Twitter and Square have all said that some employees will be able to work remotely on a permanent basis. Pajamas and/or sweatpants are optional. NPR Oliver’s first birthday turned into a 3 day marathon that exhausted both Zoe and Oliver. I have an embarrassment of photos, so I will dole them out over the next few days. ��This is Nick, my nephew, reading a book with Oliver. Oliver has many books (you can see a few around them) and he loves reading. Books are for exploring - turning pages, opening and closing, touching and talking to. I hope he will have a lifelong love of reading. We arrived in France! We leased a car (Georges) and drove slowly for 3 days to the south of France to our house we had rented for November and December. ���Our first night was in Chaumont. Chaumont is about a 4 hour drive from Paris heading south east. From the top: the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall); the Chaumont railway viaduct built in 1855 (it is 2000 feet long and 160 feet high); and the parking lot with our silver car, Georges. Georges was the GPS navigator. �Well that says it all really - and before you all worry, I’m just a bit fed up - thats an F word, isn’t it? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-02_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-144 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-02 Title A name given to the resource Day 144 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6acec9ed989fc22a0acffd580f7986d9.pdf 7ec7410e5a11f3653ed7ced0d207cf7f PDF Text Text Day 145 by windoworks Today its all about schools. Last week Craig was asked to record a video for GVSU, telling prospective students what a marvelous experience it is to attend college. Now, don’t get me wrong - in any normal (remember that word?) year, it can be a marvelous experience. But not this year. Here’s what’s happening elsewhere (Authors note: I did edit this piece a little but even though its long, its worth reading) Jeff Gregorich, superintendent of schools at Hayden Winkelman Unified School District in Arizona. This is my choice, but I’m starting to wish that it wasn’t. I don’t feel qualified. I’ve been a superintendent for 20 years, so I guess I should be used to making decisions, but I keep getting lost in my head. I’ll be in my office looking at a blank computer screen, and then all of the sudden I realize a whole hour’s gone by. I’m worried. I’m worried about everything. Each possibility I come up with is a bad one. The governor has told us we have to open our schools to students on August 17th, or else we miss out on five percent of our funding. I run a high-needs district in middle-of-nowhere Arizona. We’re 90 percent Hispanic and more than 90 percent free-and-reduced lunch. These kids need every dollar we can get. But covid is spreading all over this area and hitting my staff, and now it feels like there’s a gun to my head. I already lost one teacher to this virus. Do I risk opening back up even if it’s going to cost us more lives? Or do we run school remotely and end up depriving these kids? This is your classic one-horse town. Picture John Wayne riding through cactuses and all that. I’m superintendent, high school principal and sometimes the basketball referee during recess. This is a skeleton staff, and we pay an average salary of about 40 thousand a year. I’ve got nothing to cut. We’re buying new programs for virtual learning and trying to get hotspots and iPads for all our kids. Five percent of our budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where’s that going to come from? I might lose teaching positions or basic curriculum unless we somehow get up and running. I’ve been in the building every day, sanitizing doors and measuring out space in classrooms. We still haven’t received our order of Plexiglas barriers, so we’re cutting up shower curtains and trying to make do with that. It’s one obstacle after the next. Just last week I found out we had another staff member who tested positive, so I went through the guidance from OSHA and the CDC and tried to figure out the protocols. I’m not an expert at any of this, but I did my best with the contact tracing. I called 10 people on staff and told them they’d had a possible exposure. I arranged separate cars and got us all to the testing site. Some of my staff members were crying. They’ve seen what can happen, and they’re coming to me with questions I can’t always answer. “Does my whole family need to get tested?” “How long do I have to quarantine?” “What if this virus hits me like it did Mrs. Byrd?” A bunch of our teachers have told me they will put in for retirement if we open up this month. They’re saying: “Please don’t make us go back. This is crazy. We’re putting the whole community at risk.” They’re right. I agree with them 100 percent. Teachers don’t feel safe. Most parents said in a survey that they’re “very concerned” about sending their kids back to school. So why are we getting bullied into �opening? This district isn’t ready to open. I can’t have more people getting sick. Why are they threatening our funding? I keep waiting for someone higher up to take this decision out of my hands and come to their senses. I’m waiting for real leadership, but maybe it’s not going to happen. Washington Post And here’s another perspective: College promised a fresh start. Many of the approximately 17 million undergraduate students across the country this summer who are uncertain when or if their schools will be able to reopen safely are caught in a waiting game. Some schools announced they would begin the year with in-person classroom cleaning. Others, including Harvard, Rutgers and the University of Southern California, pushed almost all classes online for the fall. Many more schools proposed a mix of online and in-person options. As the dates approach for students to arrive on campuses and begin classes, colleges and universities are still figuring out the best way to make that happen. They have issued plans and then changed them in response to a multitude of factors. Residents of college towns fret that the influx of thousands of young adults will further spread the novel coronavirus. Professors worry about teaching large classes in stuffy classrooms. Administrators ask themselves whether they will have all the cleaning, testing and tracing capability to keep everyone safe. And even if everyone does everything right, it could still all go wrong. As the schools refine their plans, students wait and wonder. Should they take a gap year? Should they find different schools? Should they stay or should they go? Washington Post Here’s one solution to home schooling while working from home : From my sister-in-law: In Melbourne Australia there is still a significant daily increase of cases. A 9 hour curfew was introduced and here’s one of the main downtown streets at 7:45pm. Meanwhile, here in the US, things seem to be going from worse to worser. I watched a video of the Chief Medical Officer in the ER at a Houston hospital. I had seen a previous video with him some weeks ago. He said that now he was dealing with two pandemics: COVID-19 and Stupidity. He said that as he just managed to get one group of patients well enough to go home, the next new group arrived. Here’s what Deborah Birx is now saying: �Deborah Birx, the physician overseeing the White House coronavirus response, warned Sunday that the United States had entered a “new phase” of the pandemic and urged people to take extreme health precautions as infections and deaths rise sharply throughout the country. “I want to be very clear what we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, noting that cases were increasing in rural and urban areas. “It is extraordinarily widespread.” Birx’s remarks came after another week of grim signs that the country’s pandemic response was failing. The seven-day average for new coronavirus-related deaths rose in nearly half of U.S. states over the past week, pushing the national death toll past 150,000 and prompting health experts to warn that the trend was unlikely to reverse anytime soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent analysis of pandemic fatalities shows weekly reports of new deaths increasing over the next month, with 5,000 to 11,000 new deaths projected in the third week of August. The national death toll could climb to more than 168,000 by that time, with a high estimate of 182,000, according to the CDC’s review. Washington Post Yesterday, I lost my fact file. I think my iPad is seriously overworked. So I cannot bring you part 2 of the innovative way people are continuing with life and work. It was a New York Times piece and perhaps you can find it for yourself. This from my friend Auli in Finland. She is growing Lapland Ribbons for the bees and she has a bee hotel waiting for occupants. Thats a very fancy bee hotel. I love those flowers! Oliver time. His first baby chino which he knocked over right after this photo. ��On our second day in France we drove from Chaumont to Annecy. Annecy is in the Auvergne-RhôneAlps region of southeastern France. Sometimes called "Venice of the Alps", this name comes from the three canals and the Thiou river flowing through the old city. It was a very pretty place. ��So stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, keep at least 6 feet apart from others not in your bubble and hold fast. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-03_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-145 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-03 Title A name given to the resource Day 145 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/873ec1ff993a1a5cd1e563452428b890.pdf eba772b6210e41c2685f9811c4cda9c4 PDF Text Text Day 146 by windoworks So what happened yesterday? Well, I exceeded the storage limit on my free wordpress account and it took a long time for Craig and I to even find the right person to text with. Remember that days when you could phone a customer service number and get help right away? I suspect that with the virus, more and more people are working from home and using the internet to communicate with customers. Anyway we got it sorted out but I have no idea why some photos didn’t post. We’ll see how it goes today - and at least everyone got their Oliver fix! Just to update the stats: US - 41,963 new cases, total = 4.8M and 158K deaths. Michigan - 604 new cases, total = 92,503 and 6.470 deaths. Kent County - 35 new cases, total = 6,602 and 150 deaths. In Victoria, Australia - 380 new cases, total = 12,335 and 147 deaths. In New South Wales, Australia - 13 new cases, total = 3,809 and 50 deaths. In Australia, the cases look small in comparison to the US, but the state and federal governments are clamping down hard and most state borders are closed. They have watched us here in the States and taken that as the gold standard of what not to do. Asher is completely locked down and Zoe is reading the daily updates re breakouts in suburbs around her. My brother-in-law posted this: �Yesterday we braved Meijer grocery store, and everyone was wearing a mask except one woman walking about and glaring at people and daring us to say something. It’s such a small concession to make and how small and meaningless must mask deniers lives be? I am so tired of seeing posts where someone in the ICU with oxygen supplementing their breathing, says: I didn’t believe this was a real thing. It’s a real thing! Don’t be like me. I think the second pandemic, stupidity, is gaining ground. From the New York Times: A small fraction of students in the South and Midwest have returned to classrooms, and the coronavirus is already disrupting plans. In one Indiana school district, the �superintendent sent out a note Saturday thanking students and parents for “a great first two days of school!” He also said several staff members had tested positive — and the high school was swiftly closed. “I’ve been in the business over 40 years — I have never experienced anything like this,” said Lee Childress, a superintendent in Mississippi whose district has seen three students test positive since last week. “It’s kind of like drinking out of a fire hose because it’s happening so fast.” And its not just the US: A cautionary tale from Israel: The government rushed students back into the classroom in May, confident that the country had moved past the pandemic. Outbreaks ultimately closed more than 240 schools and led to the quarantine of more than 22,520 teachers and students. New York Times. And here’s my question - why did anyone think the baseball season could open when so much else can’t? • At least 13 St. Louis Cardinals players and staff members have now tested positive, forcing the team to postpone its next four games. It’s yet another blow to the floundering baseball season. New York Times. Meanwhile, back at the White House: Contrary to the president’s claims, Article II does not give him the power to do whatever he wants. A hallmark of Trump’s tenure has been his disdain for the “advice and consent” function given to the Senate for appointments by Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist 76 that requiring the Senate to confirm a president’s pick for important jobs was a critical “check” on the executive branch “to prevent the appointment of unfit characters.” Trump has said he loves keeping people in “acting” positions, including in the Cabinet. It also circumvents congressional oversight. The president has installed loyalists and ideologues into critical positions when it was clear they could not get confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate for the job, such as former acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell. Washington Post Today is a Primary Election Day in Michigan. For those of you not familiar with the American system, primaries are held state by state to determine which party candidate will run against the other party’s candidate in the General Election in November. There is some discussion about when today’s results will be available. Chump has put another ‘mate’ in charge of the Post Office and he is creating havoc. Chumps line of defense is that the mail in voting option leads to fraud, that is, it might favor the Democrats. One never knows what each day will bring in machinations and disinformation from the White House but voter fraud promises to be a biggie. ��Or hand them in at the election office in your area or post them by hand in the official ballot box somewhere near you. Yesterday Craig went to the Post Office to mail some items and the Postmistress told �him that the sorting area out the back was jammed with unsorted mail. She said her mail sorters were mostly seniors and when the virus struck, they retired. Chump and DeJoy are trying to destroy the Postal Service for their own private gain. It has been in financial difficulties for years but its the service that delivers unemployment checks and pension checks etc. How else will these deserving people receive their money? Here’s something else that happened yesterday: NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley completed a fiery, high-speed journey back from the International Space Station on Sunday, splashing down in calm Gulf of Mexico waters off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., hundreds of miles from a churning Tropical Storm Isaias in the Atlantic in a triumphal denouement to a historic mission. It was the first time in the 59-year history of crewed American space travel that astronauts had used the Gulf as a landing site, adding to other firsts that marked a new chapter in NASA’s human spaceflight program: the first launch of American astronauts to orbit from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011 and the first launch into orbit of humans on vehicles owned and operated by a private company. Washington Post And this is just to make you laugh about online teaching. �So Oliver. This was when I noticed a problem yesterday. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get this photo to load. He loves to swing. We had planned to hang a swing from the big tree in our backyard for when Zoe and Oliver visited in May this year. Oh well, best laid plans. ��Flashback: the next day on the road south in France we visited Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge built in the first century CE to carry water over 50 km (31 mi) to the Roman colony of Nemausus (Nîmes).[4] It crosses the river Gardon near the town of Vers-Pont-du-Gard in southern France. The Pont du Gard is the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges, and one of the best preserved. It was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985 because of its historical importance. The aqueduct formerly carried an estimated 40,000 m3 (8,800,000 imp gal) of water a day to the fountains, baths and homes of the citizens of Nîmes. It may have been in use as late as the 6th century, with some parts used for significantly longer, but a lack of maintenance after the 4th century led to clogging by mineral deposits and debris that eventually stopped the flow of water. After the Roman Empire collapsed and the aqueduct fell into disuse, the Pont du Gard remained largely intact due to the importance of its secondary function as a toll bridge. For centuries the local lords and bishops were responsible for its upkeep, in exchange for the right to levy tolls on travellers using it to cross the river. Wikipedia (of course). It is really big and impressive and expensive to visit. It was absolutely clogged with tourists. I think you can walk across it but luckily it was late in the day and we didn’t have time (well Craig didn’t). This just in from my son Asher in Melbourne. These photos were posted by the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews to show how successful the curfew is in Melbourne on a rainy Tuesday night. �Have you voted yet, Michiganders? Hmmm? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-04_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-146 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-04 Title A name given to the resource Day 146 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b9db71b6cff77fc139965f466ffd5771.pdf 0d11d69670dce416acdad6f401bf77b2 PDF Text Text Day 147 by windoworks Big delay in posting his morning because I went back to the hairdresser to get my hair cut short and all the red gone. I think I’ll have her put some highlights in, as I feel a bit drab after years of red hair. Yesterday there was an unspeakable tragedy in Beirut, Lebanon. There are massive numbers of injured people and the death toll keeps rising. Lebanon has been struggling in recent weeks and this is beyond their capability to cope. For some unimaginable reason someone had stored approximately 7,450 tonnes of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse unsecured and unattended by the port for 6 years. I watched the blast which blew the photographer off his feet. From the statistics I gave you yesterday you can see that we are not gaining control of this virus - in fact hardly any country in the world has got it under control. In New Zealand they have controlled it but now they can’t let tourists back into the country for the foreseeable future. Here’s an edited piece from Ed Yong, an Atlantic journalist: For a country that prides itself on exceptionalism, America has been most exceptional in its failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic and to protect its people. Despite biomedical might, formidable scientific expertise, and immense wealth, the United States squandered every possible opportunity to control the virus. The result? A global superpower with only 4 percent of the world’s population, accounts for a quarter of the world’s COVID-19 toll: more than 4.6 million confirmed cases and nearly 155,000 deaths. What went wrong? From the failure of global supply chains and the fragility of the nation’s health-care system to the president’s egregious lies and a social-media culture that sows misinformation, almost everything that led to this catastrophe was predictable. Experts raised alarms years ago; their warnings went unheeded. We must do better. We need a full accounting of everything that happened, every weakness and every failure. We need to grapple with the multitude of preexisting vulnerabilities that have accumulated in the U.S. for years, for decades. Unless we fix that broken foundation, the country will be at the mercy of even worse plagues to come. �The White House's coronavirus response coordinator, Deborah Birx, warned Sunday that the virus is “extraordinarily widespread” in cities and rural communities across the United States, and that the national death toll could double to 300,000 by the end of the year if public behavior doesn't change. She �called the outbreaks a “new phase” in the pandemic, different from March and April, when a few cities drove most infections. As he has with other pandemic advisers who deliver bad news, President Trump promptly attacked Birx, tweeting Monday that the physician “hit us” to appease Democrats critical of the White House response. “Pathetic!” Trump wrote. In an analysis, The Post's Philip Bump wrote that the president's denial of the outbreak's severity is a danger to the country. Washington Post. So now we have to deal with the reality of what is, rather than what used to be. We may use face masks as an everyday fashion item for the foreseeable future. We will continue to miss shaking hands and hugging friends and relatives, but we’ll get used to it. I think of a family doctor we had years ago who once said to me: Pamela, you can get used to anything. How true. This is the New Now. For Craig and I, we are hoping that we will be able to see our New Zealand and Australian families in May next year, but no one knows what will be happening by then. They are racing to produce an effective vaccine but any vaccine will still need comprehensive testing before it can be offered to the public. And if we are running out of testing supplies right now, how will we have enough vaccination kits to make a difference? So this is interesting: While debates over masks have dominated headlines, more than three-quarters of respondents to a new NPR/Ipsos poll support enacting state laws to require mask wearing in public at all times.And nearly 60% said they would support a nationwide order making it mandatory to shelter at home for two weeks. A majority of respondents also said they believe the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than other countries, and most want the federal government to take extensive action to slow the spread of the coronavirus, favoring a top-down approach to reopening schools and businesses. NPR �I just put that in to make you laugh. That President Trump would speak in a different register from previous presidents has been clear since at least as far back as his dark and dystopian inaugural address. He has addressed himself to a subset of the political community, not all of it; he has trafficked in fear and division, not uplift and unity; he has used his public platform less to offer and defend a policy agenda than to attack targets, which have included journalists, current and former executive-branch officials, private individuals, and federal judges. A recent New York Times analysis found that more than half of the president’s tweets from January 2017 to November 2019 were attacks. He has also been a font of lies and misinformation; at the time of this �writing, The Washington Post’s running tally counts more than 20,000 presidential lies over the past three and a half years. The president’s speech is, of course, not merely speech. Some of his words have had significant material consequences—entirely aside from the administration’s policy initiatives. A recent ABC News analysis identified 54 acts of violence in which the perpetrator explicitly invoked President Trump. The president’s bellicose foreign-policy rhetoric has worsened relations with adversaries like Iran and North Korea, and alienated allies across the globe. His spurious charges of absentee-voting fraud may already be causing states to underprepare for a heavily absentee-ballot-based November general election, will likely deter many voters from casting absentee ballots, and appear to many to be designed to sow doubts about the integrity of election results. His dangerous rhetoric around COVID-19, including his promotion of unproven or discredited treatment methods and his shifting messaging regarding basic public-health measures such as mask wearing, has no doubt impacted the behavior of private citizens and public officials, with the potential to result in tens of thousands of additional preventable deaths. The Atlantic This morning I looked online to see the results from yesterday’s primary election here in Michigan. There were stories that it would take longer to count due to absentee voting but the results for West Michigan are in already. Our Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is trying to persuade the Republican State Senate to allow counting of absentee ballots when received - as in Colorado. The Republicans are not persuaded at this point. However, I am encouraged by the election results and will continue to encourage everyone to vote, either by mail in (hand delivered once completed) or in person on the day, and I will continue to encourage everyone to vote BLUE (Democrat) up and down the ballot. It is increasingly apparent that chump is struggling with speaking, let alone thinking. He was interviewed a couple of days ago and the video of the interview has been touted as a comedy sketch - so I tried to watch it. I think I managed one minute and then I thought - I don’t care. And I turned it off. �A fabulous Auckland, New Zealand sunrise. Oliver. This photo is from daycare but Zoe added the caption: ��He’s a year old and he’s painting - and actually getting it ON the paper. I remember teaching 5 year olds who couldn’t paint better than him. Flashback: our last overnight stay on our way south was in Arles. We stayed in a very odd Ibis hotel on the edge of the town. The hotel was surrounded by razor topped fencing and to get in we had to call the office. Arles is a city on the Rhône River in the Provence region of southern France. It's famed for inspiring the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Once a provincial capital of ancient Rome, Arles is also known for many remains from that era, including Arles Amphitheatre (les Arènes d'Arles), now hosting plays, concerts and bullfights. �������From the top: two photos of the Rhône River at dawn; two photos of the Roman arena (which was closed because it was Sunday); the Roman theater and lastly me in front of the theater entrance. Next: the Camargue Here is our finished house and the driveway without the chain link gates and poles. I’m posting this again because I don’t think it posted 2 days ago. Remember: this is the new now. We can do this. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-05_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-147 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-05 Title A name given to the resource Day 147 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/07775b246d8e3d1d6452411f4c974fcd.pdf 2118dd266d878f46d039ed2e29ac07e2 PDF Text Text Day 148 by windoworks Last night was a Covid night. You all know what I mean, right? Covid dreams - well nightmares really. Luckily this only happens once in a while. Yesterday the plumbers came to put a sleeve in our chimney. We have two chimneys - one for the fireplace and one for the furnace and the hot water heater. New code rules say that a new hot water heater must sit on a tray, must have a pipe to a nearby drain (right across the basement floor - a trip hazard just waiting to happen) and must be vented to the chimney which must be fitted with a special aluminum sleeve. This operation needed one small truck, one large truck, and 2 men - one in the basement and one on the roof coordinating via cell phone. Two hours of banging and shouting and it was done. You know our roof is steep - take a look. ��Also that chimney had no cap - the rain just fell straight down it. Luckily no animals had fallen down inside, and now it does have a metal cap with a flue. The other big event of the day was a trip to a hardware store where Craig bought a total of 18 bags of pea gravel. He had spent the day before widening the path from our back door to our new fence. It took 2 trips to the hardware store as the car could only cope with 10 bags maximum weight at one time. Here’s the finished product so far: ��We are like everyone else on our block: repairing, rebuilding, landscaping, painting etc. Everyone is at home and doing their best to do all those jobs around the house they kept putting off. We have also been watching the Covid series of the English gardening show: Gardeners World. Craig and I have a very basic knowledge of plant names which sometimes includes ‘you know, the blue flowers’. But this show in which Monty Don and his colleagues do their best to help everybody watching to have houseplants or balcony gardens or small backyard plots to grow and care for and enjoy in this difficult time is a joy to watch. I’m starting to look at flowers in a different way. So on to the stories of the day. First up Beirut. Ammonium nitrate is the same raw material Timothy McVeigh used to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. In that deadly attack, 2 tons of the fertilizer were used. The Beirut port was holding an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. Health officials said the blast killed at least 100 people and wounded more than 4,000. The city's governor told local media that the blast, which was heard over 50 miles away, has "destroyed more than half the Lebanese capital." Hundreds of people have been left homeless, he said. The blast was so strong that it was felt in Cyprus, more than 100 miles away in the Mediterranean Sea. Among the injured was Dion Nissenbaum, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, who was at home with his 4-year-old daughter when the explosions hit. Despite being a half-mile away, both suffered cuts, and Nissenbaum's daughter remains in the hospital. In an interview on NPR's Morning Edition, Nissenbaum relayed how the situation unfolded. He was taking his daughter to the bathroom, he said, when he heard the initial explosion. "It sounded a lot like a car bomb that I've heard in reporting in places like Kabul, and even Istanbul. I went out into the living room to call my colleagues to find out what it was. And my daughter came running out naked into the living room to say, 'What was that?' "And then the blast, the second blast, the much more powerful blast, just blew in the glass, and the doors and everything in our house. And I just had to dive to the ground and use my body to shield her from as much of the glass and wood that was just … blew into our house and then blew back the other way, somehow. It blew through our house and then like, ricocheted off the building behind us and tossed my computer and our sofa out into the front of the street. It was unlike any blast I've ever experienced." NPR Craig and I visited Oklahoma City some years ago and went to the memorial there. That blast affected other buildings across the street and next door and that was shocking enough, but Beirut is something else altogether. �This is before and after photos of the port of Beirut. As of yesterday the death toll was at 135 and I’m not sure how many people were injured or are missing. A clear story of misadventure is emerging but apparently chump has twice insisted it was an attack - based on no actual evidence whatsoever. Meanwhile the schools reopening debate continues. The return to classrooms is not going smoothly in the United States. Teachers in Georgia's largest school district returned to work in the past week to plan for students' return, but by the next day, 260 employees had been barred from coming back because they had either tested positive or been exposed to someone who tested positive. Though Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has said schools there must reopen Aug. 17, the state’s head of public instruction said in-person learning is still unsafe due to the surge in cases, setting up a possible clash. “Our state is simply not ready to have all our students and educators congregate in school facilities,” Arizona Superintendent Kathy Hoffman said in a statement. And with students returning to colleges and universities this month, support staff worry about inconsistent safety protocols and mask-less students jeopardizing their health. Some schools are revisiting their reopening plans as cases spike, but dozens of colleges are forging ahead with some form of in-person instruction. In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities Monday, teachers, students, parents and others protested the return of in-person classes, carrying fake coffins and gravestones. The protesters demanded that health concerns and science dictate when and how schools reopen. Washington Post. �And to update this: Chicago has declared all schools closed and switched to online classes this fall semester. Teacher’s unions are strong. Today and tomorrow I am posting some Covid-19 etiquette questions and answers from NPR’s Elaine Swann. 1.How do I tell somebody — especially a stranger — to step back because that person is just too close to me? Swann says this is the No. 1 question people ask her. Your first inclination is to yell out, "Step back!" or "Get up off me!" she says — but those reactions aren't exactly polite, and they're likely to escalate the problem. Instead, she says, try to use words like "we" and "us" in the request. For example, "Let's just put a little bit of space in between each other while we're waiting in line." This shows mutual consideration — you're thinking about how your behavior is affecting their health — and hope they are concerned with your safety too. Takeaway 1: Show mutual consideration. 2. What if I ask a person to keep their distance or put on their mask — and they say no? "Then, do what you can to protect yourself," says Swann: Turn your face away from that person, step over a few feet, walk in a different direction. Takeaway 2: Protect yourself. 3. It makes my blood boil when I see people not following the pandemic guidelines. Can I intervene? "If their behavior is not affecting you, let it go," she says. "Folks are getting into these arguments and kerfuffles because they're trying to get folks to comply with the pandemic guidelines. Stop trying to do that if the person does not want to comply. You have to let crazy be crazy and leave them alone." The only time you should speak up, she says, is if it's directly affecting your safety. Then you can try using some of the "we" and "us" language in her suggestion above. Takeaway 3: Let it go. I thought this was very helpful and I will post the last 3 tomorrow. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sickened more than 16.5 million people across six continents. It is raging in countries that never contained the virus. It is resurging in many of the ones that did. If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. One outcome is now looking almost certain: This virus is never going away. The coronavirus is simply too widespread and too transmissible. The most likely scenario, experts say, is that the pandemic ends at some point—because enough people have been either infected or vaccinated— but the virus continues to circulate in lower levels around the globe. Cases will wax and wane over time. Outbreaks will pop up here and there. Even when a much-anticipated vaccine arrives, it is likely to only suppress but never completely eradicate the virus. (For context, consider that vaccines exist for more than a dozen human viruses but only one, smallpox, has ever been eradicated from the planet, and that took 15 years of immense global coordination.) We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives. �In the best-case scenario, a vaccine and better treatments blunt COVID-19’s severity, making it a much less dangerous and less disruptive disease. Over time, SARS-CoV-2 becomes just another seasonal respiratory virus, like the four other coronaviruses that cause a sizable proportion of common colds: 229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1 Sarah Zhang: The Atlantic Now I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear but I do try to include the most reliable sources and Sarah Zhang at The Atlantic does very careful research. And here’s the latest from the World Health Organization: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization's director-general warned on Monday: the world is reliant on "the basics" of disease control Testing, isolating and treating patients, and tracing and quarantining their contacts. Do it all. Inform, empower and listen to communities. Do it all. For individuals, it's about keeping physical distance, wearing a mask, cleaning hands regularly and coughing safely away from others. Do it all. The message to people and governments is clear: Do it all. And when the disease is under control, he urged, "Keep going!" NPR To cheer you up here are 2 photos from my friend in Perth, Western Australia ��This second photo is a metal Cockatoo with its comb extended. Very noisy birds, Cockatoos and they like to eat wooden railings on balconies. No, I have no idea why. And Oliver, of course. ��“This is my new shower cap” Our last stop before wending our way back to La Bastide de Bousignac (the French village we would be living in for 2 months) was the Camargue. Humans have lived in the Camargue for millennia, greatly affecting it with drainage schemes, dykes, rice paddies and salt pans. Much of the outer Camargue has been drained for agricultural purposes.The Camargue is home to more than 400 species of birds and has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International.Its brine ponds provide one of the few European habitats for the greater flamingo. The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious mosquitos to be found anywhere in France. Camargue horses (Camarguais) roam the extensive marshlands, along with Camargue cattle Camargue horses are ridden by the gardians (cowboys), who rear the region's cattle for fighting bulls for regional use and for export to Spain, as well as sheep. Many of these animals are raised in semi-feral conditions, allowed to roam through the Camargue within a manade, or free-running herd. They are periodically rounded up for culling, medical treatment, or other events. Wikipedia ������From the top: 2 photos of me on the beach at Saints-Maries-de-la-Mer, the capital of the Camarague in the south of France. By the way, it had a small bullfighting ring. It is a popular beach resort in the summer. Third photo -me shopping. Next: a salt marsh and then 2 photos of the wild horses living in the marshes. It was a strange wild area perched at the edge of the Mediterranean and the Rhône River delta. See you tomorrow � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-06_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-148 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-06 Title A name given to the resource Day 148 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/43c6e798d86bee46349393b4a6ec9b19.pdf 26fe309ccc47de9890369d952e7b8d84 PDF Text Text Day 149 by windoworks Today I have been writing and posting this blog for 150 days (the first post didn’t have a number). At first I thought (naively) that I might write this for 30 days or so. I have lost photos; had problems posting; used up all my fact file; had the fact file grow to an unmanageable size; had the fact file corrupted; had articles which became out of date literally overnight; researched endlessly; switched from a free site to a paid one with double the capacity; run out of ideas; regularly forgotten to include something I wanted to post that day; agonized over what was enough each day and what would be too much; worried over an imbalance of depressing news and struggled to find anything positive to include; switched to a regular inclusion of Oliver photos and greatly expanded the flashback feature. In the beginning it was almost all my words, then it became mostly others words and lately I’m trying more of a balance between the two. I think I may be posting daily for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure how the content will change except for Oliver and Flashbacks. I welcome comments and I love receiving articles, memes and photos from my readers. I always smile when I see: here’s something you might like for your blogpost Pamela. And here’s what I really want to say: this is your blogpost as much as mine. We are all on this journey together and it is your readership which helps me get through each day. so let us continue our journey together and to start here’s something which made me smile and wince: �Thank you Kym. �U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned Tuesday that the world is facing a “generational catastrophe” due to ongoing school closures, calling the coronavirus pandemic “the largest disruption of education ever.” Guterres urged countries to suppress the virus sufficiently to allow schools to reopen. Washington Post. And good luck with that! We keep hearing from scientists and doctors and people with brains (sorry that slipped in) that if we just wore masks and stayed 6 feet apart - and washed our hands - we would start to contain the virus. So here’s how New Zealand did it: On Sunday, New Zealand will mark 100 days without community transmission of Covid-19. From the first known case imported into New Zealand on February 26 to the last case of community transmission detected on May 1, elimination took 65 days. New Zealand relied on three types of measures to get rid of the virus: 1. ongoing border controls to stop COVID-19 from entering the country 2. a lockdown and physical distancing to stop community transmission 3. case-based controls using testing, contact tracing and quarantine. There are key lessons from New Zealand’s Covid-19 experience. Elimination of the virus appears to have allowed New Zealand to return to near-normal operation fairly rapidly, minimised economic damage compared with Australia. But the economic impact is likely to keep playing out over the coming months. Henry Cook/Stuff The only problem I can see is that once the borders are reopened, that could lead to the virus reappearing and community transmission occurring again. So to combat that, here’s another piece from Stuff which is a bit depressing for Craig and I and our hope to visit next summer: The New Zealand Government is hiring communications staff for two-year contracts with the coronavirus managed isolation and quarantine team, suggesting it believes borders could be shut for a long while. The job postings for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s managed isolation team were posted in recent days and describe a two-year fixed term position. The team will handle the running of the Government’s sprawling border hotel regime, which houses all people coming into the country for 14 days. Managed isolation is a cornerstone in the defence against Covid-19 and will remain in place as long as necessary, to protect New Zealanders and those returning home. Henry Cook/Stuff Stuff.co.nz is an online news service and is worth visiting for an entirely different perspective on the world. �When Donald Trump became the president of the United States, Americans could no longer deny the racism in their country, argues Ibram X. Kendi, a contributing writer and a preeminent thinker on anti- �racism. “Just as the 1850s paved the way for the revolution against slavery, Trump’s presidency has paved the way for a revolution against racism,” he writes in our latest cover story, which is worth reading in full. Here are three major takeaways from Ibram’s piece (as explained by him): 1.Trump revealed the country’s prejudices anew. He has held up a mirror to American society, and it has reflected back a grotesque image that many people had until now refused to see: an image not just of the racism still coursing through the country, but also of the reflex to deny that reality. 2.And in doing so, he inadvertently helped power an anti-racist revolution. The America that denied its racism through the Obama years has struggled to deny its racism through the Trump years. … It has become harder, in the Trump years, to blame Black people for racial inequity and injustice. 3.What happens next is up to Americans. Now that Trump has pushed a critical mass of Americans to a point where they can no longer explain away the nation’s sins, the question is what those Americans will do about it. The Atlantic And I wanted to post this next piece so we could all think about it: White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday he and his family have needed continued security as a result of his high-profile statements about the coronavirus pandemic. Fauci didn't reveal any more details about the threats and harassment, but added, "I wouldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that people who object to things that are pure public health principles are so set against it, and don't like what you and I say, namely in the word of science, that they actually threaten you." NPR So here’s how we begin to address all these problems: �Using this (in a timely manner) �Here’s the final COVID-19 etiquette points: �4, What if I'm at a socially distanced outdoor gathering and, after a few hours, people start to bend the rules a little bit? Try using the "we" and "us" language if it's just happening with an individual, says Swann — saying to the person, "Let's make sure we stay in our little sections over here." But if it's happening partywide, alert the host, she says. The person in charge has the authority to enforce the pandemic guidelines. Swann suggests: "I noticed that people are starting to get relaxed with the guidelines. I thought I'd bring that to your attention. If the host does something about it, then great, says Swann. "But if the shift doesn't happen and you're uncomfortable with the environment, then wrap it up. Just say, 'You know what — I'm gonna head on home now. I had a great time. Takeaway 4: Take yourself out of uncomfortable situations — and remember to preserve relationships. 5. A friend invited me to hang out. How do I know whether it's safe to do so? We might not be on the same page with the pandemic protocols. Don't make assumptions about how people are following the guidelines, says Swann. Some people, for example, feel safer staying at home, while others live as if the virus didn't exist. So ask a few questions in advance, she says. For example: "I wear a face covering when I'm around others. How do you feel about wearing face coverings? Is that something you're doing? Is this going to be a social distancing affair?" Listen to what they have to say. "Then take a moment to step back and ask yourself whether it is something you feel comfortable with," says Swann. "If not, say, 'Thank you so much for the invitation, but I won't be able to make it.' " And don't push them to change their plans to fit your level of comfort, she adds. "This is not the time to police our friends and our family members. Instead, we should curtail our own behavior and make decisions on what's best for ourselves." Takeaway 5: Don't assume. 6. BONUS ADVICE: What the heck do I do with my mask at a socially distanced meal? When you're eating, take the mask off completely, says Swann. And, she adds, "don't have it hanging from one ear." You're going to be chomping and chewing and drinking and talking in the duration of that time, so it doesn't make sense to try to wear it at the table, she explains. But don't even think about putting your used mask on the table, says Swann. Aside from the germs, it's a major etiquette no-no. In general, she says, "nothing should go on the table except for food." That includes your cellphone, purse, keys, hat, laptop — and, of course, your mask. Carefully "place it in your bag, purse or in your pocket. Or you can place it on your lap underneath your napkin," she says. "That way it is easily accessible when your server comes over to you." Remember to mask up when your server is around, she notes, to keep them safe too. Takeaway 6: Please don't put your mask on the table. And speaking of masks, here’s this: �Face masks are a simple way to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus through talking, coughing or sneezing, scientists and public-health specialists say. But they need to be worn properly. While some types of masks are more effective than others, public-health officials say any face covering— even a bandanna—is better than nothing. Here’s how different types of masks stack up, and how they are meant to be used. Common masks fall into three categories: cloth masks or coverings like gaiters, intended to prevent an infected person from spreading the virus by catching large droplets; surgical masks, with a more sophisticated design also meant to prevent the wearer from spreading diseases; and N95 masks, which protect the wearer as well, and fit tightly to the face. Cloth • Typically homemade • Style and materials vary widely • Prevents wearer from spreading disease • Work in herd-immunity: the more wear masks, the more effective they are • Wash after use Surgical • Loose fit • Prevents wearer from spreading disease • Dispose after use • Made from a material called polypropylene N95 • Tight fit, must be fit tested • Protects wearer if fitted properly • Limited quantity Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wall Street Journal For some light relief: The latest thing we never thought we would see: people eating airline food, at home, that they bought on purpose. Nope, not a joke. A leading airline food company in Israel is selling in-flight meals to the public �as a low-cost pandemic delivery option after it found itself stocked with the tiny trays of food with no one on a plane to eat them. Which begs the question: “Chicken or beef?” NPR Its Oliver time! ��A sight to make every teachers heart sing: a one year old reading a book. Flashback: so 4 months after the beginning of our epic European adventure, we made it to our last destination: La Bastide de Bousignac, a tiny village literally halfway between Carcassonne and Toulouse. First some photos of our house, in a cul de sac, on the edge of the farmland. ����Our car parked in the driveway. We actually never parked there again, we parked outside the gates instead. My little french kitchen with a stove I adored and wish I could afford here at home. Our living room from the terrace door - note the fireplace which we used every day of our stay. The terrace. Behind me are steps to the ground floor apartment and pool, both closed for the winter. I loved that house. Yesterday Craig and I went to a greenhouse and purchased 3 huge grass plants (among other things). Craig then spent a few hours finishing the landscaping around the new fence and path. It looks fabulous. What do you think? �Be brave. And register to vote right away. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-07_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-149 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-07 Title A name given to the resource Day 149 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c3daf238e205a802c10fb3e7a4a2ecef.pdf d8deeac8ba8faac3caf4d5281190ea47 PDF Text Text Day 15 by windoworks The City of Grand Rapids has introduced a new daily event called Grand Rapids Waves Neighborhood Connection. Every evening we are to step outside our houses onto our porch or front path and wave to our neighbors. I have signed us up for 7:30pm tonight when the hour begins. I’ll let you know how it goes. Its to make sure everyone on our part of the block are still doing well. Every morning CB and I wake between 6-6:30am. It seems our internal alarm clocks ring at that time and then we are awake for the day. This also means by 9:15pm at night we are both struggling to stay awake although it takes time to close the house for the night, walk the dog, clean our teeth etc., and then read in bed so we don’t go to sleep until after 10pm. This morning I have trolled through my email, messages and FaceBook as usual and read funny things, newsy emails from friends faraway and truly disturbing and upsetting articles from well accredited sources. The numbers of cases continue to increase in Michigan, and hospitals in Detroit are in an alarming position. Remember how we couldn’t believe the war zone decision making in Italy? It’s about to hit Detroit and New York and many other places in the US. So, after a compelling urge to lie on the floor and moan passed, I sat up, opened my IPad and here we are. Yesterday CB went walking as usual with Murphy Brown after breakfast. Here are some photos ��The top photo is of Robinson Rd next to Wilcox Park. Further up on the left is Aquinas College (out of shot) completely deserted. This next photo is of the main intersection in Eastown, Lake Drive. This is the start of the business district on Lake Drive and it was taken at 9:12 am on a Wednesday morning. Every afternoon CB and I have started to use an app called Marco Polo and we make a short video of ourselves singing children’s songs for OB to watch with his mother. Apparently he likes them, mostly because he seems to be a very musical child. It’s fun and challenging and is becoming part of our daily routine. And on that topic: routine is everything. It gives us a reason to get up in the morning, eat good food, have a daily shower and try to walk outside for 30 minutes every day (while carefully practicing social distancing of course). So, todays flashback photo; �This is Jarlshof on the Shetland Islands. It is an archeological site that was occupied for thousands of years from the Neolithic (Stone) Age from about 5000BCE through to the Vikings, 1000 CE. Each layer uncovered a different time period and different culture. I loved the Shetland Islands firstly because it is where they film the detective series Shetland and the main actor Douglas Henshall who plays Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is so damned cute! They were filming Series 6 while we were there but it was Sunday and while our guide said we might see him in the local pub later in the afternoon - we didn’t, and I think he might have gone home for the weekend. It is amazing watching the series now and saying to each other: ooh look there’s Jimmy’s house - we saw that! Secondly I loved it because our guide took us to a shop (in the middle of nowhere) where they make sweaters (jumpers) - the same company who made the one I bought 2 years before in the Orkney Isles. Of course I bought a knitted jacket for a lot of money. And thirdly, I loved it because on our way to see Jarlshof we had to stop the bus and wait for a small plane to land at the airport - the runway crosses the main road! When we got to Jarlshof we had to line up to go inside the nearby hotel to use the public bathrooms , one at a time. This was because they can’t build �toilets anywhere near the site. Every time they start to dig down they strike more ancient ruins and have to stop! So thats it for today. Stay well, and stay inside until the all clear sounds. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-03-26_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-26 Title A name given to the resource Day 15 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37549b0dce2aa6ce26af08040e546e3f.pdf 9658819279beded66bcf84c91f8131b1 PDF Text Text Day 150 by windoworks I was watching Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth in Australia, talk this morning about the coronavirus and he said: This is the new normal. Perhaps one day when this pandemic is over we might return to the old normal and be able to go to the pub with friends for a beer, but not now. Yesterday my friend Wendy and I were talking about the job of our Women’s City Club committee and organizing online events and we realized we were now operating as a committee on What Is, rather then What Was or What May Be. And that’s it really. As Wendy said - we’ve reached the other side. This is our New Now and its time to kiss the What Was goodbye and concentrate on making the What Is as good as it can be. Now it isn’t as easy as that sounds, but its a start. Dr Nick also referred to an epidemic intelligence committee (wow!) and the Black Dog Institute. I looked this up. Its primarily set up to help bipolar sufferers but it has useful daily charts to fill in and lots of non threatening advice. I’m not bipolar but during this time I do have the occasional Black Dog day. Dr Nick also talked about his experience with the daily constant anxiety which never goes away and I think we can all appreciate that. And just to let you know you’re not alone, here’s this: Michelle Obama said that she's dealing with "some form of low-grade depression" due to the coronavirus lockdown, racial strife in the U.S., and the Trump administration. In the second episode of her new podcast, the former first lady spoke with her friend Michele Norris, the former longtime host of NPR's All Things Considered. Obama described trouble sleeping and periods throughout the lockdown in which she has felt down. "Spiritually, these are not … fulfilling times," she said. "I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression," Obama continued. "Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting." She's not the only one feeling depressed right now. More than 1 in 3 Americans reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in a recent pulse survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. A year ago, that figure was 1 in 10. Obama said that she hasn't been moving around as much during this time, so she's not knock-out tired at the end of the day, and she goes to bed later. "And I'm waking up in the middle of the night, cause I'm worrying about something, or there's a heaviness." NPR �When the president persists in saying the first foolish thing that pops into his head and easily swayed people listen, this is what happens: Americans are being warned against drinking hand sanitiser after four people died and others were left with visual impairments. �A total of 15 people - 13 men and two women - were admitted to hospital after ingesting sanitiser in the southern states of Arizona and New Mexico in May and June, a new report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. All of them, aged 21 to 65, had drunk hand sanitiser containing methanol, an ingredient deemed "not acceptable" by the US regulator Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Four people out of the 15 died, three left hospital with new visual impairments and six had seizures as they were admitted - including three of those who died. The report said four of the patients were still in hospital as of 8 July, so there is no update on whether they have suffered long-term effects. One of the patients was a 44-year-old man who had gone to a doctor because he was experiencing sudden visual impairment. The report said he had drunk "an unknown quantity of alcohol-based hand sanitiser during the few days before seeking medical care". He had high methanol levels in his blood and while in hospital experienced seizures and had to undergo dialysis to clean his blood. The man recovered from "acute methanol poisoning" after six days in hospital but was left with "near-total vision loss". Scientists from the CDC said they started investigating the ingestion of hand sanitiser after a national FDA warning about certain hand sanitisers containing methanol prompted a call from health officials in Arizona and New Mexico. In April, the CDC warned household cleaners "can cause health problems when not used properly", a day after President Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant to treat coronavirus. Sky News �And to go with this cartoon: "There isn't any iceberg. There was an iceberg but it's in a totally different ocean. The iceberg is in this ocean but it will melt very soon. There is an iceberg but we didn't hit the iceberg. We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly. The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg. We are taking on water but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat, and they are beautiful lifeboats. Look, passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them. We don't have any lifeboats, we're not lifeboat distributors. Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats. I really don't think we need that many lifeboats. We have lifeboats and they're supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers' lifeboats. The lifeboats were left on shore by the last captain of this ship. Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg." While that is creative fiction, here’s what Trump actually said on tape, regarding the mounting deaths from the virus: “They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is.”—Trump during an interview with Axios As the election looms nearer, Trump has begun disparaging Biden’s faith. So just in case you wondered - “Like the words of so many other insecure bullies, President Trump’s comments reveal more about him than they do about anyone else,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a 300-word statement. “My faith teaches me to love my neighbor as I would myself, while President Trump only seeks to divide us. My faith teaches me to care for the least among us, while President Trump seems to only be �concerned about his gilded friends. My faith teaches me to welcome the stranger, while President Trump tears families apart. My faith teaches me to walk humbly, while President Trump teargassed peaceful protestors so he could walk over to a church for a photo op.” In contrast, Biden talks often and easily about his faith. He grew up in an Irish Catholic family and attended Catholic schools. “Biden almost always has rosary beads in his pocket, and frequently holds them in his hand — including while he monitored the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. He has written and spoken at length of how faith helped him grieve the loss of his first wife and daughter many years ago, and his son Beau more recently,” Julie Zauzmer and Sarah Pulliam Bailey report. Washington Post And this next item is very important to understand as we go towards the November election: The government of China prefers that President Trump not win reelection in November, seeing the incumbent as “unpredictable,” and Russia is using a range of measures to try to “denigrate” the president’s opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, including selective leaks of information and efforts on social media, a top U.S. intelligence official said in a statement Friday. The statement by William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, was notable for identifying three countries seeking to influence the 2020 election — China, Russia and Iran. But he portrayed Russia as the most active source of interference. Evanina also said that a Ukrainian lawmaker who has been in contact with Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, is part of a Russian disinformation effort. Washington Post Recently I read an excellent article in the Atlantic from a journalist who interviewed Gretchen Whitmer over many weeks. Embarrassingly for me as a researcher, I cannot find his name but this is an NPR piece. I will post it in sections over the next few days. One of the many disorienting features of this disorienting time has been the stark absence of executive leadership. The job of steering the nation through these epic convulsions has instead fallen to the nation’s governors. I first spoke with Whitmer on April 29, seven weeks after Michigan reported its first two cases of Covid-19. At the time, I wanted to understand what it was like to govern through a global pandemic. On that day, nearly 1,000 residents of Michigan tested positive for the virus, and more than 100 were killed by it. A few thousand people had recently gathered at the Michigan State Capitol for the so-called Operation Gridlock, the first mass protest of her stay-at-home order; some stayed in their cars, others crowded into the plaza carrying signs calling for her removal and comparing her to Hitler (“Heil Whitmer”). Whitmer’s executive order locking down the state was set to expire the following week. She intended to renew it for another 21 days over the objections of the Republican-controlled State Legislature, which was preparing to sue her. “They’ve asked to negotiate terms of reopening like we’re in a political crisis,” Whitmer told me. “We’re not in a political crisis, we’re in a public-health crisis. I can’t negotiate people’s lives.” �More tomorrow. But it must surely be Oliver time! ��See the little blonde boy in the green sweater sitting smack bang in the front? When he realized it was story time he crawled at top speed, barging through the other children to get to the front. Thats my grandchild. La Bastide de Bousignac;: this is our little village. It had a small bakery and the mayors office and that’s it! ����From the top: this is the bell tower - a design peculiar to the Ariege. Next, the Catholic Church, which had very limited monthly hours for mass and confession - they shared the priest with a number of other villages. The village graveyard and lastly, the farm at the end of our cul de sac. To finish I offer this: Everything is Going to be All Right How should I not be glad to contemplate the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window and a high tide reflected on the ceiling? There will be dying, there will be dying, but there is no need to go into that. The poems flow from the hand unbidden and the hidden source is the watchful heart. The sun rises in spite of everything and the far cities are beautiful and bright. I lie here in a riot of sunlight �watching the day break and the clouds flying. Everything is going to be all right. Derek Mahon,from Selected Poems Tomorrow then. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-08_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-150 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-08 Title A name given to the resource Day 150 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/82a0c8515c0cbe48c91a2ac6009339de.pdf ff307da79d7cba26ae5e554436f9b750 PDF Text Text Day 151. by windoworks Two days ago we went walking after lunch at Highlands. This was a golf course and had closed down and fallen into disrepair. The Blandford Nature Center and the Land Conservancy of West Michigan collaborated on the purchase of the 121-acre former Highlands Golf Club in Grand Rapids in the winter of 2017 with a vision to transform the property into a natural area for community recreation, nature preservation, and land conservation. Since the last time we visited they have torn down the clubhouse and the other buildings and are in the middle of regenerating the remaining piece of the golf course. We walked along one of the many interconnecting mown paths and admired the wildflowers. ��The only landmark for not getting lost is the water tower in the distance. We couldn’t believe how high the grasses and wildflowers had grown since out last visit. It is a beautiful place to walk - just not in the middle of a hot day! I have never seen so may houses look lived in. By that I mean that at least one person is at home all day now, and gardens are gorgeous, front porches look inviting and used daily and everyone is walking or biking. Last week we went to Target and the thing that struck me was the back wall of the sports section was completely devoid of bicycles. There was only a long row of empty racks. It is surprising what stores are sold out of. The little children on our block have spent the summer with one of the older teenagers on our block as their carer. It makes me smile to see the girl I remember as a little one herself, organizing activities and keeping everyone safe and happy. The shrieks of laughter and the sound of scooters and bikes riding up and down the sidewalk has been the constant hum of the summer. So what else is happening? In virus terms, the stats continue to rise. Yesterday the US saw an increase of 55,692 cases to bring the total cases confirmed to 5.01M. Remember how shocked we were as we neared 4M? We also continue to add over 1000 deaths a day ( yesterday we added 1,109) and now the total deaths �are 162K. Its hard to comprehend these huge numbers, unless you know someone who has tested positive and then it becomes a disturbing reality. I have a friend who’s spouse is ill and tested negative, but is displaying the classic virus symptoms. And here’s a piece of worrying news: tests which are found to be negative are in fact somewhere between 70 and 75% accurate. Oh. A coronavirus model the White House cited heavily in the spring now predicts the U.S. death toll will double to nearly 300,000 by December unless Americans change their ways. The director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said the country was experiencing a “rollercoaster” effect: briefly following safety guidelines when infection rates spike, but abandoning them as soon as they begin to bring the numbers down. Washington Post. Speaking of people abandoning safety guidelines: One of the largest events since the beginning of the pandemic has begun in South Dakota: More than 250,000 people are expected at the iconic Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. That's scaled down from previous years, where about half-a-million people have descended on the city of about 7,000 for an event that has developed a reputation as an anything-goes festival. While the 80-year tradition isn't as raucous as it once was, festivalgoers will be largely free of social distancing restrictions common elsewhere in the country during this year's 10-day festival. Bikers flocking to the small town from around the country won't face quarantining requirements if they are from a coronavirus hot spot. And masks? They're encouraged – not required. So far, few people are heeding that encouragement, according to Associated Press reports from Friday and Saturday. USA Today. �And now we can’t even go to Canada - although I know some of you have been seriously considering it. I was packing for my road trip from Colorado to Alberta, Canada, when the text came in from a gentleman I’d been helping with groceries during the pandemic. “The Canadians are actually doing damage to vehicles with United States plates on them,” he cautioned, giving me my first inkling that it wasn’t just public health officials who were serious about keeping Americans out of Canada, where the death rate from the coronavirus has been roughly half that of its southern neighbor. As a dual citizen I was entitled to cross the border, closed to most Americans because of the pandemic. With an octogenarian father in Calgary who had been largely isolated during the stay-at-home orders, I was willing to submit to Canada’s mandatory two-week quarantine in order to visit. But my friend’s warning proved prescient. Some concerned residents who fear that the virus will be spread to their communities have been taking matters into their own hands, spurring so many reports of intimidation that the premier of British Columbia, John Horgan, reminded angry Canadians to “Be Calm. Be Kind” at a July 27 news conference. Before the pandemic, when Americans could choose most any country in the world to travel, Canada was their second most popular foreign destination, behind only Mexico. Lured by the proximity, advantageous exchange rate and safety of their northern neighbor, in the first six months of last year, U.S. residents made 10.5 million trips to Canada, the highest level in 12 years, according to Statistics Canada, a government agency. But the welcome mat was rolled up on March 31, when the border between the two countries was closed to tourists. That hasn’t kept some Americans from trying, however. Many are routinely turned away at border crossings, while other have chosen to go sightseeing instead of taking the most direct route to Alaska as required of those driving from the Lower 48 — even though violators face possible fines, jail or even being banned from Canada. There were so many interlopers that on July 31, Canada began limiting which crossings along the border with the United States can be used by foreign nationals who are allowed to transit through the country for nondiscretionary purposes. It is also requiring them to register, and making them display a hang tag on their rear view mirror with a mandatory departure date. Now this isn’t cheering: 1. The outbreak may worsen come winter. That’s when the cold will bring many indoors. “We know that the biggest risk of spread for this virus is when meaningful numbers of people gather indoors for any extended period of time,” one expert told Joe Pinsker. �2. Immunology is central to the pandemic’s biggest mysteries. Understanding it is key. “Which is unfortunate because, you see, the immune system is very complicated,” Ed Yong, who also wrote one of our latest cover stories, explains. 3. Even after this is all over, the coronavirus will likely stick around. “We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives,” our Science reporter Sarah Zhang warns. “In fact, virologists have wondered whether the common-cold coronaviruses also got their start as a pandemic, before settling in as routine viruses.” The Atlantic They didn’t use just masks in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, they were sometimes more creative. ��Well you could certainly still wear lipstick here! And I wanted to share this - a friend on a nearby block did this. Do remember I told you when you fly the American flag upside down this signals ‘dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property‘ ? Oliver time. �He loves toy trucks and cars and drives them everywhere - even on Mummy’s knee. �One of our first excursions form La Bastide was to the nearby town of Mirepoix. If we were allowed to walk over the farmers fields we could have walked there in 15 minutes and the road was too narrow and busy to walk along the side. At the heart of Mirepoix is one of the finest surviving arcaded market squares - Les Couverts- in France. The square is bordered by houses dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The mediaeval Maison des Consuls (council house) has rafter-ends carved with dozens of images of animals and monsters, and caricatures of mediaeval professions and social groups.Wikipedia. Monday was the weekly market day and we would shop for delicious foodstuffs and Craig would put them back in the car and then we would have the Plat du Jour at our favorite cafe for lunch. It was easy to fall into the French rhythm of eating a 2 or 3 course lunch in a leisurely manner with wine and much conversation and then a picnic type dinner at home. We did eat lunch out most days and sometimes we ate a proper dinner as well. All the shops and offices closed between 12pm and 2pm or 3pm on weekdays and this made it easy to eat a longer lunch with time for a nap afterwards. ���At the top: market Monday; a view underneath the arcade and a view from the outside of the arcade looking at the houses above. I’ll leave you with the next part of Gov Whitmer’s interviews: Since then, I have been talking to Whitmer every couple of days; our conversations evolved as she found herself confronting not only a public-health crisis but an economic crisis, the catastrophic collapse of a major dam and a historic reckoning with racial inequality. She was usually in her living room at the governor’s residence in Lansing when we spoke — she set up her office there because it had the best WiFi reception in the house — though when the weather was good she would occasionally step outside and walk around the lawn. Some days, I could hear her Labradoodle, Kevin, playing with a squeaky chew toy in the background. Whitmer is not naturally introspective. Recounting the almost incomprehensibly consequential decisions she was making on a daily basis, she rarely lingered on how she felt or the magnitude of the moment. She was more inclined to review events and discuss strategy, approaching it all with the same practical mindset and vocabulary she brought to more manageable governmental challenges like fixing potholes. The effect wasn’t necessarily stirring — there was no soaring rhetoric about the need to rise to this historic challenge — but it was oddly reassuring; she was channeling panic into process. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-09_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-151 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-09 Title A name given to the resource Day 151 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d094dffa245d27c6ea53092e0160ca09.pdf 5336d7b3b612f4702c8166dc459e2611 PDF Text Text Day 152 by windoworks Last night my son sent an Instagram post from the Sydney Opera House - well not the house itself, but about it. The drawings talked about the closed Opera House that had a light left on in each of the theaters. These lights are called Ghost Lights and they originated as lights to keep the ghosts away, but they are also lights for safety (no falling in the orchestra pit etc). The person in charge of the lights at the Opera House said that this year she left the ghost lights on to say: we will be back. Here are the last 2 drawings from the post: ��This morning I read a very long article from Rolling Stone magazine by Professor Wade Davis at the University of British Columbia. Its a tough read. Here are 2 extracts Today, the base pay of those at the top is commonly 400 times that of their salaried staff, with many earning orders of magnitude more in stock options and perks. The elite one percent of Americans control $30 trillion of assets, while the bottom half have more debt than assets. The three richest Americans have more money than the poorest 160 million of their countrymen. Fully a fifth of American households have zero or negative net worth, a figure that rises to 37 percent for black families. The median wealth of black households is a tenth that of whites. The vast majority of Americans — white, black, and brown — are �two paychecks removed from bankruptcy. Though living in a nation that celebrates itself as the wealthiest in history, most Americans live on a high wire, with no safety net to brace a fall And The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone. All must be prepared to fight for everything: education, shelter, food, medical care. What every prosperous and successful democracy deems to be fundamental rights — universal health care, equal access to quality public education, a social safety net for the weak, elderly, and infirmed — America dismisses as socialist indulgences, as if so many signs of weakness. If you want to read the whole article, here is the link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politicalcommentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/ I was born and raised in a socialist country. Then I moved to another socialist country for my middle years. Since moving to the United States and becoming a citizen, I have never really understood the deeply ingrained resistance to socialism. All 3 of mu children have long annual leave and accruing long service leave. They are sometimes instructed to use up some of their annual leave as there are rules about accumulating too much. What springs to mind is that all 3 children hold important positions within their professions and yet the world doesn’t end if they take 6 weeks leave - and their job is still there waiting for them when they return. As for the cost of my college degree - this was 30 years ago and it has changed now but then the annual cost of my attending university was deferred under a national scheme called HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) which meant I would pay the cost back at an annual percentage in my annual tax bill. But here’s the kicker - it only started once you began earning wages. In other news: Letitia James, New York's attorney general, announced civil action on Thursday to dissolve the National Rifle Association after an 18-month investigation found more than $64 million in alleged fraud by CEO Wayne LaPierre and others. James claims NRA officials misused charitable funds for personal gain, gave contracts to families and friends, and bought the loyalty of former employees with lucrative contracts. The NRA condemned the allegations, saying the action is a political vendetta intended to limit gun rights and stifle free speech. NPR I hope this succeeds. And here’s something to make you laugh from a friend: �A German nudist had the last laugh after giving chase to a wild boar that had run off with a bag containing his laptop. Pictures posted on social media show the naked man running after a sow and her two piglets to the mirth of fellow bathers at Berlin's Teufelssee, or Devil's Lake. Adele Landauer, an actor and coach who says she took the pictures, wrote that the pigs first helped themselves to somebody's pizza before grabbing the bag. When the owner realised what had happened, he “gave his all” and recovered it, she said. When he came back with his yellow bag in the hand we all clapped and congratulated him for his success,” she added. Landauer said she later showed the man the pictures she had taken and “he laughed loudly and authorised me to publish them”. Wild boars are common in the forests around Berlin and can occasionally be seen venturing through city parks in search of food. Here’s the next excerpt from Gov Whitmer’s ongoing interviews: In mid-March, as Michigan’s caseload continued to grow, Whitmer faced another tough decision: Should she lock down the state? Over the next 48 hours, Michigan’s caseload doubled to more than 1,000, and it became clear that the state had to close. But how much of it? Totten brought the revised order to Whitmer in her office on March 23. He told her that the moment she signed it, she would almost certainly be exercising more power than any governor in the history of Michigan. “There has never been a governor who literally told everyone in the state to stay home,” he �said. “That’s just extraordinary.” Over the next week, Michigan’s Covid-19 numbers exploded. By the end of March, the state was reporting 7,615 confirmed cases and 259 deaths. Both totals were far higher than those in any of its neighboring states. Michigan is the nation’s 10th-most-populous state, but it had the fourth-highest Covid-19 case and fatality counts in the country. The state’s caseload was still rising exponentially. On April 9, Whitmer signed a new executive order. This one imposed some of the most severe restrictions in the country, barring any activity that wasn’t “necessary to sustain or protect life.” It prohibited the use of motorboats, closed golf courses and, in a move almost guaranteed to provoke a backlash, required big-box stores to seal off aisles devoted to lawn care. As of yesterday Michigan had 96,726 cases in total and 6,519 deaths. I remember when we were shocked by almost 5000 deaths. Two days ago we walked along the ridge above the ravine on the Allendale GVSU campus. It is lovely, quiet and shady. ��Then yesterday I found this little guy on the corner of our front porch. �And here is Craig in his happy place: ��The ‘holes’ around the tree are where he has planted wildflower seeds. Now Oliver: ��His first selfie. In the first week one of our first excursions was to Montsegur. In 1243–44, the Cathars (a religious sect considered heretical by the Catholic Church) who had sought refuge at the Montségur fortress were besieged by 10,000 troops, in what is now known as the siege of Montségur. In March 1244, the Cathars finally surrendered and approximately 244 were burned en masse in a bonfire at the foot of the pog when they refused to renounce their faith. Wikipedia ����There is still the ruins of the fortress on the top. I climbed maybe a third of the way up before I went down again and fell down the last steep bit (but only wounded my pride). All around us were cows grazing with their cow bells clonking on the breeze. It was confronting to think of those burned alive in what is a lovely meadow now. Today I’ll leave you with this photo taken by my friend Rich. Its taken from St Ignace looking back at Lower Michigan on the other side of the Mackinac Bridge. �Remember: 89 days until the election. Vote as soon as your ballot turns up in the mail and then hand deliver it back. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-10_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-152 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-10 Title A name given to the resource Day 152 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ccb8dc13f9611ab8c9bfd1d570668f51.pdf 0cdbd16c19bbf9506de54cc406374550 PDF Text Text Day 153. by windoworks New Zealand operates on a reverse coronavirus stage system to Michigan. For 101 days they had no community transmission of Covid-19 cases and life went back to Stage 1, that is, normal. Everything opened up except the borders and New Zealanders could be seen gathering in restaurants, bars and cafes; walking on beaches and in parks, riding bicycles and flying for vacations to other parts of New Zealand. On Tuesday night (remember, they’re 16 hours ahead of us) Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern closed the Greater Auckland area (Wellsford to Pukekohe) down to Stage 3 - all offices, restaurants, bars, cafes,schools etc closed. All Aucklanders not in essential services must stay home. All pharmacies and grocery stores to remain open but with restrictions. She closed the rest of NZ back to Stage 2, limiting group gatherings etc. PM Ardern also recommended the use of masks when visiting essential services. Why did this happen? Yesterday they discovered 4 cases of community transmission in Auckland. They are beginning massive testing and tracing tomorrow morning. We have seen this event in European and Asian countries where they have gotten the virus under control. A super quick lockdown, testing and tracing seems to bring it back under control very quickly. But its the rollercoaster effect: while the virus surges everyone behaves themselves but when it eases off, everyone throws caution to the wind. I find myself wondering - will masks become a fashion accessory? Will we color coordinate them with our daily outfit? Yesterday we went to Meijer where Craig noticed that every staff member was wearing a snazzy black mask with Meijer printed on it. A few people persisted in wearing their mask over their mouths only, but I guess its better than no mask at all. And they did have someone cleaning carts and baskets. Good job, Meijer! I felt dispirited yesterday. (Note to family: don’t worry, I’m almost dispirited). So, in anticipation of an outing I had made egg salad the day before and while Craig dropped Murphy at daycare (first time in 4+ months) I made the rest of our picnic lunch. We had intended to drive to Silver Lake, north beside Lake Michigan but the traffic was crazy (insane driving behavior) plus an added traffic jam due to road repairs, so we turned off the freeway and drove to Muskegon State Park. We stopped by the roadside and ate lunch watching the lake and listening to the waves. ��Murphy is being groomed on Thursday, so if the weather is good we might do another drive and picnic. Its an astonishing thing to say but the days are drawing in. Its dark longer in the mornings and the sun sets before 9pm. Its still hot weather and yesterday afternoon was horribly humid ahead of a storm. We were under a severe storm watch and in several states they experienced a Derecho which is a line of intense, widespread and fast moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds. I believe the wind gusts got up to 100+ miles an hour. It went all the way to Chicago and then caused huge waves surging back and forth across southern Lake Michigan. We escaped most of the wind but the rain was a gully washer as my neighbor John said. Speaking of John, he corrected me regarding ghost lights in theaters. John has worked extensively in theater for much of his working life and he says: “The primary purpose of a ghost light is safety. Theaters are extremely dark, and with constantly changing scenery, the stage can be extremely dangerous, from tripping on new scenic elements, or walking into the orchestra pit or just off the stage itself. Ghosts are appeased with empty seats as well as a light to perform by in order they do not curse the theater. Every theater has a ghost and the light is for them not against them”. Thanks John. �Meanwhile ..... Grocery prices in the United States are rising at the fastest pace in decades after the pandemic sickened food plant workers, broke supply chains and otherwise upended the complex network of farms, factories and shipping routes Americans rely on to eat. The sticker shock is hitting people already struggling with unemployment and lost income, forcing families to reckon with a scarcity of basic necessities. Oct. 1 will be a day of reckoning for the airline industry.It's when major carriers will be allowed to lay off employees under the terms of a federal bailout, and many early ticket buyers are worried their flights may not exist. The Post asked industry experts whether it's risky to book a flight for the fall. Expect “an adventure,” one of them warned. (Safety wise, experts caution against non-emergency flights.) In the coronavirus economy, masks are king. Requirements that millions of Americans wear them in public has created a surge of demand, prompting some struggling companies to repurpose their manufacturing lines and get into the mask-making business. Meanwhile, we're all trying to get rid of our junk. Stuck at home and strapped for cash, Americans are widely engaged in a “great decluttering,” our Style desk wrote. “Not since the January 2019 purging tsunami inspired by Marie Kondo’s tidying Netflix series have Americans been so inspired to edit the junk out of their homes.” Are you? Washington Post This what the the two parties were arguing about before Trump took matters (illegally, I think) into his own hands. �And I had to post this: �Any day now Joe Biden will announce his running partner. Please keep this (above) in mind if he doesn’t choose a black woman. He’s basing his choice on a woman who can work closely with him and shares his ideals. Sounds like the best plan to me. And a word of warning: if you think that if Trump is reelected, you will just move to another country - not an option. NO ONE anywhere wants us anytime soon. Thats �because Trump and his minions have mismanaged this dreadful virus so appallingly that everyone in the world wants Americans to stay safely locked in America. They’ll let us out again when the virus has run its course. Last part of the Whitmer interviews: Whitmer and I had been talking for almost two months. We had covered a lot of ground: Her struggle to get medical supplies to her state; her inability to ban firearms from the Capitol; the bursting of a dam; the anger and pain now exploding across her state. As the weeks went by, it became increasingly clear to me that all of these different conversations about all of these different subjects were really one conversation about one subject: Her government — our government — was badly broken. During one of our last conversations, I asked Whitmer how she defined success, given the almost unimaginably daunting choices that lay ahead for her. She had just returned from another trip to Midland, where she learned that only a small fraction of the flood victims were likely to have their claims paid by their insurance companies. It was the sort of question Whitmer usually steered away from, migrating instead to firmer ground: the intransigent Legislature, the White House, the budget. She thought about it for an uncharacteristically long moment as she paced outside the governor’s residence and then offered the only response she could. “That’s a hard question to answer,” she said. “It’s one that we’re grappling with.” New York Times Just this morning Russia announced it was using a vaccine developed before clinical trials were completed. Putin said his daughter had been vaccinated. Before we all cheer, read this: Federal health official are worried Americans won't trust a coronavirus vaccine if and when one is developed, so they've launched a PR effort to assure people they won't release one before it's been tested, reviewed and vetted by an outside committee. The nightmare scenario is a repeat of 1976, when the Ford administration rushed a new swine flu vaccine out to the public, only for people to panic over possible side effects and force the program to shut down. Two days ago we walked again in Oak Hill Graveyard. Here are 2 famous local names, and one not so famous: ���BISSELL from BISSELL vacuum cleaners; Blodgett from donating the land for Blodgett Hospital and oh look! Benjamin. Time for Oliver ��He loves this empty cable reel called Rolly. No, I didn’t name it. About 30 minutes or so drive from us was Carcassone. As you approach it on the freeway, it rises out of the surrounding fields like a fairy castle. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Aude between historic trade routes, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées. Its strategic importance was quickly recognized by the Romans, who occupied its hilltop until the demise of the Western Roman Empire. In the fifth century, it was taken over by the Visigoths, who founded the city. Its strategic location led successive rulers to expand its fortifications until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. Its citadel, known as the Cité de Carcassonne, is a medieval fortress dating back to the Gallo-Roman period. Wikipedia �����Carcassone is actually 3 cities: the Citadel fortress, the medieval city below and the modern city further out. There were 2 ways of accessing the Citadel - the first was astonishingly steep and I hated it, and the other was an easy walk in from the adjacent parking lot. We visited Carcassone a number of times. This was our first visit to the Citadel. To leave you today, I offer this: Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over �the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-11_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-153 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-11 Title A name given to the resource Day 153 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f0d5f9ad7c0eb7338b58477396d9a345.pdf c4bc071155af373249c44f4fae848256 PDF Text Text Day 154 by windoworks It’s official! Kamala Harris will be Joe Biden’s running mate. I think it a good choice plus I’m really glad the Big Gretch is still looking after our state. Here are some reasons why Kamala is a good choice: The New York Times Joe Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate on Tuesday. She is the first Black woman, and the first person of Indian descent, to be nominated for national office by a major party. �Today we turned to our colleague Alex Burns, who covered the announcement, to explain why Biden decided on Harris. 1. Broad appeal. Harris, long viewed as a rising Democratic star and an embodiment of the party’s diversity, was a relatively safe pick. She falls comfortably within the mainstream, but her embrace of a more left-leaning agenda as a presidential candidate last year meant that “liberals never mobilized against her during the V.P. search,” Alex told us. 2. Governing chops. Harris’s experience and pragmatism sync with Biden’s political style. Her ideological flexibility also matches his recent openness to more left-leaning economic and racialjustice policies amid the pandemic and protests over police violence. 3. Political panache. Harris sharply criticized Biden during a primary debate last year over his opposition to busing as a means of integrating public schools, an attack that left some advisers wary of putting her on the ticket. Picking Harris suggests a recognition that her more energetic style could prove an asset. I think Trump’s reaction was to name her Phony Kamala - and I want to say: is that the best you can think of? There are 82 days to the presidential election. When you receive your mail in ballot, hand deliver it to the appropriate office or put it in your city’s ballot box collection point, and then check online that it was received - or vote in person on the day, of course. Meanwhile in New Zealand where Zar and Alva are preparing to be at home again for COVID-19 Phase 2, the experts are still trying to figure out where the virus came from and an initial suggestion is this: i.stuff.co.nz A cool storage facility in Auckland will be tested for Covid-19, with the possibility that the virus could have travelled into New Zealand on refrigerated freight. Four cases of Covid-19 were discovered in south Auckland on Tuesday evening, ending a 102-day run of no community transmission. One of the people infected worked at Americold, a cool store company in Mount Wellington. Another worked at personal finance company Finance Now on Dominion Rd in Mount Eden Wait, what? It travels by itself on cold things? Okay, keep the bleach spray and cloths handy for everything entering your house - mail, groceries, prescriptions, parcels. You never know where that little blighter might be hiding. Yesterday Craig tried the mask test. He will be wearing the blue surgical masks to teach (I can’t even talk coherently about college reopening) and he had found his cloth masks too hard to be heard through. To �test masks, you out it on, light a match and then try to blow it out. If you can blow it out, throw that mask away, its useless. And speaking of masks, bandanas or neck gaiters are not safe: Washington Post: Not all face masks are created equal, as we have learned over the course of this pandemic. While N95s are the gold standard for and commonly used by health-care workers, most Americans reach for accessible, reusable fabrics to protect others as we run our errands. Now researchers have found that so-called neck gaiters — typically made from a very thin layer of stretchy, polyester-spandex blend — can be worse than wearing no mask at all. “These neck gaiters are extremely common in a lot of places because they’re very convenient to wear,” said Warren S. Warren, a professor of physics, chemistry, radiology and biomedical engineering at Duke. “But the exact reason why they’re so convenient, which is that they don’t restrict air, is the reason why they’re not doing much of a job helping people.” �Oh so true! Back to school. Trump has suggested and Betsy DeVos has endorsed the idea that children are able to go back to school full time and they’ll be safe - or not: New York Times: In the last two weeks of July, nearly 100,000 children in the United States tested positive for the coronavirus, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. The speed and the scale of the infections — dozens of countries have not yet recorded 100,000 cases in total — further complicate the already daunting issue of reopening schools. In Georgia, Indiana and other �states, some schools that reopened have already closed down again after new outbreaks emerged. Recent research suggests that children can carry at least as much of the virus in their noses and throats as adults do, even if they have only mild or moderate symptoms. That has prompted fears that students who become ill at school may spread the virus to their older relatives. But it’s not just older people who are at risk — in some rare cases, a child’s health can be severely affected. Nearly 600 young people in the U.S., from infants to 20 year olds, have developed an inflammatory syndrome linked to Covid-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Most of the children required intensive care. “I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota, told The Times in July. “There will be transmission,” he said. “What we have to do is accept that now and include that in our plans.” ��From Zoe in Sydney where you no longer have to push a button to stop the traffic so you can cross the road. I was going to include a piece about the Big Ten canceling the football season this year, that is the big ten college football teams. But then I saw that other conferences (groups) are considering canceling seasons, so I’ll wait until that story plays out. The New Normal (NPR) Homemade sourdough bread, foraged mushrooms, open meadows, freshly picked flowers, homegrown produce, knitting, baking pies and rustic cottages. Sound like a scene from Little House on the Prairie or a spread in a 1940 Better Homes and Gardens magazine? Actually, it’s cottagecore, the new “it” aesthetic trend brought on by — you guessed it — locked-in syndrome … sorry, the coronavirus pandemic. Social media influencers and pop stars (hey, Taylor Swift!) have adopted cottagecore as a wholesome, back-tobasics response to feeling trapped and overwhelmed — sort of a honey-dipped antidote to “doomscrolling.” Ah yes, I’ll take cottagecore over doomscrolling any day. And now Oliver: ��You can just see the glint in his eye - 2 seconds later the tower was gone! One of our next excursions was to Esperaza. One of the old pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela passes this way, through the mountains and on into Spain. In the early 20th century, Espéraza was known for hat making. The town has a Hat Making Museum. Around 1815, the village experienced a considerable economic growth thanks to Bugarach hatters who settled there. First in 1830 and then in 1878 Espéraza enjoyed a prosperous period due to headwear, encouraged by the arrival of the railway. By 1929, there were 3000 Espéraza workers and 14 factories which allowed the village to become the second largest manufacturer of felt hats in the world (after Monza, Italy). But fashion had a terrible impact on the garment industry: the hat was worn less and less in the mid-20th century and Espéraza plunged into an economic depression. Now all that remains of the 14 Espéraza hat factories is a museum after the last factory burned down in 2002, although some have been converted to housing. Since the late 20th century, Espéraza has become known for dinosaur fossil bones and eggs discovered in the area. These discoveries began at the end of the 19th century and excavations continue today and new species of dinosaurs continue to be found. Dinosauria, the local museum, exhibits these fossils along with life size reconstructions of dinosaurs. Wikipedia ����This was one of the best dinosaur exhibits I have ever seen. It was so unexpected - we found it by accident, just driving through the countryside. Esperaza is a tiny town. In the 3rd photo the Tyrannosaurus Rex was motion sensitive and as I came around the corner, he roared at me. I think I jumped 3 feet in the air. Esperaza has a wonderful Sunday market and although we always intended to go, we just never got there. �Once more, many, many thanks for your readership and thanks also to all those who send me items to share. I don’t always use them and sometimes I save them for a later post but they are always welcome. Tomorrow then. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-12_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-154 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-12 Title A name given to the resource Day 154 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2d5fc031e7983c87ff9e2e6d39c7e9ce.pdf 75df1d56fa5d8b8a760e809c9b0e40b7 PDF Text Text Day 155 by windoworks Now there’s an idea! Well this seems relevant. Its from: Is That Hope? Section in What A Day, a Crooked Media daily newsletter. • Hahaha, no. The Cherokee County School District in Georgia just closed one high school and has over 1,100 students and staff in quarantine, a whopping eight days into the school year. As of Tuesday, the school district had a total of 59 confirmed cases. The district’s superintendent recommended that students wear masks to prevent more schools from closing, but hasn’t issued a mask mandate. Shout out to Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) for making this discretionary. �• But wait, it gets loonier: In Florida, another state with no mask requirement that just shattered its records for coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths, a Marion County sheriff has gone so far as to bar deputies from wearing masks in the office. Sheriff Billy Woods’s policy also prohibits civilians from wearing masks while visiting the building. All in a hard day’s work keepin’ the community safe! In China they have detected the virus on imported frozen foods, chicken and shrimp, from Brazil. Whether it is then transmitted to humans handling the foods is not known. But here in the States there have been outbreaks at frozen food processing plants. At the same time, apparently some lemons, oranges, limes and onions have been contaminated with salmonella and grocery stores have begun pulling these items off the shelf and putting signs on ‘clean’ produce. There are some days when I wonder if it will ever end. We are carefully living here in the US, my oldest and his wife are shut down in Auckland, New Zealand at least until tomorrow, where the 4 cases discovered on Tuesday morphed into a cluster of 17 cases yesterday. My youngest is 6 weeks through a complete lockdown in Melbourne, with another 4 weeks to go (I hope I got that right Asher). And Zoe and Oliver are proceeding with caution in Sydney Australia. I’m almost dispirited. �And here’s what’s happening behind closed doors: If the administration’s initial response to the coronavirus was denial, its failure to control the pandemic since then was driven by dysfunction and resulted in a lost summer, according to the portrait that emerges from interviews with 41 senior administration officials and other people directly involved in or briefed on the response efforts. Many of them spoke only on the condition of anonymity to reveal confidential �discussions or to offer candid assessments without retribution. An internal model by Trump’s Council on Economic Advisers predicts a looming disaster, with the number of infections projected to rise later in August and into September and October in the Midwest and elsewhere, according to people briefed on the data. Nearly seven months after the first coronavirus case was reported in the United States, there still is no national strategy to contain the outbreak — other than the demands, some of them contradictory, that Trump issues on Twitter or at news conferences. “OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!” the president decreed in a tweet Monday. With polls showing Trump’s popularity on the decline and widespread disapproval of his management of the viral outbreak, staffers have concocted a positive feedback loop for the boss. They present him with fawning media commentary and craft charts with statistics that back up the president’s claim that the administration has done a great — even historically excellent — job fighting the virus. A senior administration official involved in the pandemic response said, “Everyone is busy trying to create a Potemkin village for him every day. You’re not supposed to see this behavior in liberal democracies that are founded on principles of rule of law. Everyone bends over backwards to create this Potemkin village for him and for his inner circle.” “Everybody is too scared of their own shadow to speak the truth,” said a senior official involved in the response. Washington Post, I think. And if you’re wondering what the Potemkin village quote means here’s what Wikipedia says: The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built solely to impress Empress Catherine II by her former lover Grigory Potemkin, during her journey to Crimea in 1787. And here they are, ready to take on the chaos and confusion and clear a well thought out path through the mess. They look like the A Team to me. �Stats: US - 5.21M cases with an increase yesterday of 55, 170. 166K deaths, an increase yesterday of 1,486. The national death toll is over 1,000 every single day. Michigan has 98, 825 cases with an increase yesterday of 515. Since the middle of July, Michigan has recorded anywhere between 500 and 1,000+ new cases a day. Kent County has between 6,947 and 7,635 cases and probably 157 deaths. We slide up and down daily between 25 and 80 new cases. Yesterday an acquaintance described the symptoms she was having at a zoom meeting I was attending. She had called her doctor but he refused to authorize a Covid-19 test. For a surreal moment I thought I had imagined what she said, but no, she elaborated further and no one at her practice would authorize a test. She appears to be continuing life as normal, which really bothered me. �Lets imagine that the virus resembles glitter. If you’re sick and you cough and sneeze, a little cloud of glitter comes out your nose and mouth. Some glitter is so light it stays suspended in the air for quite a while. Some glitter is heavier and it falls down and sticks to every surface around or near you. And of course, you put your hand over your mouth and now there’s glitter all over your hands and anything you touch. If you isolate at home, the glitter is your glitter. If you wear a mask, the glitter sticks to the inside of your mask until you discard it or wash it. If you wash your hands regularly, the glitter is scrubbed off and goes down the drain. If you stay at least 6 feet away from others, the glitter stays at least 6 feet away with you. I always like to ‘see’ ideas and thats how I see the virus - as glitter. I’ll leave this discussion with this: Washington Post: Here are some significant developments: • Senior aides to President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that his new executive orders will provide less financial help for the unemployed than previously advertised. • Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said he has serious doubts that Russia’s experimental coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective. Russia has pledged to administer the vaccinate to millions of people, even before it has gone through crucial large-scale testing. • The Big Ten and Pac-12 canceled their 2020 football seasons as Trump continued to push for games to take place, saying that a fall without college football would be “tragic.” • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) acknowledged that many schools in the state will not reopen until at least October, while one Republican lawmaker in Idaho said allowing experts to make decisions about closing or reopening schools was “elitist.” • Lebanon reported a record surge of 300 new infections one week after a deadly blast at Beirut’s port temporarily sidelined attempts to stamp out the virus and left hundreds of thousands homeless. So I can hear you saying: something nice, tell us something nice. ��Here’s an Oliver photo. He is so close to walking! One day we drove to Leucate. Wikipedia: Leucate is on the Mediterranean coast of France. It is part of the eastern Corbières Massif, which are called the Corbières maritimes. It is around 30 km (19 mi) south of Narbonne, and around 30 km (19 mi) north of Perpignan. The Phare du Cap (lighthouse) Leucate offers a view (on a clear day) over the French Mediterranean Sea from the Spanish border to the Camargue. Leucate was pretty much closed for the winter but it was a beautiful day and I do love a beach with the waves. The green is good but the beach is better. �����First 2 photos: me on the main beach; Craig on the cliffs; Craig on the beach - looking south that’s Spain and the Pyrenees in the distance. I did love being on the beach gazing at the Mediterranean Sea - and the coast was at most 2 hours drive away. When we first came to the US, we got a dog, a cocker spaniel poodle cross we called Buster. He was with us for 9 wonderful years and this cartoon is so true, especially with our neighbors on the block. �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-13_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-155 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-13 Title A name given to the resource Day 155 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/da033757c9d41705a32ed6005f1ad890.pdf e8e1b09fc37b43715bab085dda399683 PDF Text Text Day 156 by windoworks Yesterday my friend told me that her condominium management mandated new rules for their outside community space: no more then 10 people, all with masks on and social distancing strictly adhered to. There’s an update on what constitutes the proper social distance now: 16 feet apart - so if you imagine 3 men of average height stacked on top of each other - 16 feet is a little less than that. If thats too hard to imagine, that’s 2 1/2 door heights, one on top of the other. Or, 1 foot taller than the shortest giraffe. Now masks. Yesterday (I’m pretty sure it was yesterday) I told you that all masks are not created equal. Bandanas and gaiters aren’t good at keeping the virus contained. Today there is more news: from the Washington Post Popular, seemingly high-tech masks with exhalation vents and valves don’t actually protect people from covid-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned. I’m going to guess the virus escapes out the vent or valve. Spooky. And how about this: �More mask stuff from the Washington Post: A Florida sheriff has barred his deputies from wearing masks at work because, he says, he doesn't trust the science behind them. A Republican congressional candidate in Maryland held a birthday party/buffet/fundraiser for 300 guests, many of them maskless. Like other first responders, lifeguards have been challenged by the pandemic. Some are putting masks on potential drowning victims. Some are getting sick anyway. Now I’m posting this next one which contains a swear word. I would have taken it out but my IT skills are not that good. So skip over the word if it bothers you - it doesn’t bother me. �Remember the frozen food story from yesterday? Well here’s another disturbing development: New Normal Buddy, an adult German shepherd from Staten Island and the first known American pooch to test positive for the coronavirus, has gone to the great doggy farm in the sky. When Buddy’s family first noticed their beloved German shepherd wasn’t feeling great in mid-March, they immediately suspected the coronavirus — because they had it. So far, 13 dogs and 11 cats have tested positive for the virus. Buddy’s death reveals just how little we know about COVID-19 and pets. Now this next item needs careful reading: New Scientist �A vaccine that protects against one of the main common cold viruses has been shown to be safe and effective in a clinical trial and could be available by 2024. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is so contagious that more than 90 per cent of people have experienced their first infection by the age of 2. It usually causes cold symptoms but can lead to severe illness in young children and older people What I want you to notice here is that this clinically proven vaccine COULD be available by 2024. So how long will it be before a clinically proven vaccine for COVID-19 will be available? The blatant smearing and outright lies have begun about Kamala Harris, because this is Plan B to win reelection. Here’s some thoughts: �Just in case you were wondering what’s going on with the USPS - its struggling. Next week the Postmaster General has to testify before the Democratic Congress. He has outlawed overtime and removed sorting machines. Why? You ask. Read this: Washington Post: In extraordinary comments to Fox News, President Trump said he is trying to prevent the U.S. Postal Service from delivering millions of mail-in ballots to voters by holding up $25 billion in emergency funding for the agency. “They need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can �take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said. The cash-strapped mail service is already experiencing days-long delays after Trump’s new postmaster general implemented new policies including a ban on overtime pay. Congressional Democrats have insisted on emergency funding for the agency in their negotiations over a new stimulus bill, which collapsed Thursday as the Senate adjourned for the next three and a half weeks. Many health experts say mail-in voting is the safest way for people to vote in November, but Trump has baselessly attacked efforts to expand it as a plot to steal the election. The president’s likely opponent, Joe Biden, called Trump’s latest comments “an assault on our democracy and economy by a desperate man.” He actually said that out loud on Prime Time TV. Isn’t that treason or something? On a lighter note: yesterday we went back to Muskegon State Park for a picnic lunch and a chence to paddle in the clear cool lake water. ��Oliver at daycare. ‘Can you get this cellophane off? Its stuck to my hand. What? Doesn’t everyone eat glue? Its rather tasty.’ �Some other photos from Week 2 living in France �Roquefixade - a view of the mountains from the village ���Our first visit to Foix where I got my hair cut and dyed while Craig walked up to Foix Castle and then above it to look down at Foix. �One of our first walks along a section of the Voie Verte (Green Way), an old railway track made into long walking tacks through the countryside. �Tomorrow then � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-14_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-156 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-14 Title A name given to the resource Day 156 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8ed6e50ddd9e490713894fcbe3630e59.pdf f697a5fce661891f56c9848390e9e157 PDF Text Text Day 157 by windoworks So to begin, its all about voting, how we vote and the US Postal Service. From my FB friend Sarahjane Smith (Authors note: not my FB friend but posted by one of my FB friends) The Postal Service is older than the country itself. The Continental Congress made Ben Franklin the first postmaster general in 1775, and it remains the most popular agency in the federal government, beloved by Americans for the daily service it provides them, no matter where they live or who they are. This is how Title 39 of the U.S. Code defines its mission: ‘The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.’ Think how important this is right now, binding us together at a time when we have a president working so hard to tear us apart. It’s no wonder he looks at the Postal Service and sees it as one more thing he wants to destroy. Well, that and the fact that once he’s gone from the WH his next stop is probably prison. Too many of the wrong people voting guarantees that. On CNBC News Thursday, President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that the administration does not want protection of voting rights to pass as part of the coronavirus stimulus package. “So much of the Democratic asks are really liberal left wish lists we don’t want to have,” said Kudlow. “Voting rights, and aid to aliens, and so forth. That’s not our game.” �I was watching a clip from Rachel Maddow’s Friday show, and she ran a story about USPS mailboxes being removed from public places in Montana. Craig said, as we were eating breakfast ‘well it wasn’t on the NPR radio news this morning’ so I looked it up online and as I did so it popped into Craig’s cellphone news service. It wasn’t just Montana - it was 16 states across the west. They were removing “underused” boxes for relocation somewhere else. Mmmmhmmm. So after a public outcry the official spokesperson for the USPS said: sorry we’ll wait until after the election to do this. So here’s what appeared on FB yesterday: �I am so proud to be a Michigander. Go Jocelyn! �The Washington Post: The Postal Service’s warnings of potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and policy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to decommission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy processing of flat mail, including letters and ballots. My FB feed has been full of advice regarding early voting and a strong emphasis on hand delivering our ballots. Here’s a comprehensive piece: Democracydocket.com: Voters concerned about the current crisis facing the USPS and what it could mean for their ballot arriving by Election Day have several options: 1. Vote early in person. Early voting allows voters to vote in person without waiting in crowded or long lines. Forty-one states have some form of early voting in place and may start as early as 45 days before Election Day. Many states also have weekend early voting options. Make sure to check with your local election office to see if they extended early voting due to the pandemic. 2. Use a ballot drop box. Many states and counties provide ballot drop boxes as a secure and convenient option for voters to return their sealed and signed mail ballot. Drop boxes skip the mail process entirely, allowing voters to drop off their mail ballots and have them be taken directly to county offices. Boxes are placed in many convenient locations such as outside community centers, near public transit routes or on college campuses. Check with your local election office to see if there are ballot drop boxes in your community. 3. Drop off your ballot at an election office or polling location. Almost all states permit voters to return a delivered ballot in person at their local election office, but not everyone lives close to their election office. That is why many states allow voters to drop off their signed and sealed ballots at any in-person voting location in the county. Check with your local election office to see if you can drop off your ballot at a polling location closer to your home. 4. Organize community ballot collection. Many states allow designated organizations, election officials or family members to collect a voter’s signed and sealed ballot and submit the ballot on behalf of the voter. This option is vital for high-risk voters who are unable to leave their home to cast a ballot. Check who can collect your ballot in your state. While we are nationally and statewide running out of funding for absolutely everything (honestly, anything you care to name) China is going from strength to strength. Everyone has a home, an income of some type, food on the table, clean streets, well run train systems across the whole country, good roads etc. While you have the right to vote there, there’s only one candidate and of course surveillance is �everywhere. You can’t protest and there’s little freedom of the press. The government doesn’t like ethnic minorities and air quality is awful in cities but for the average citizen life is quite good. I remember being in China years ago and our young guide said that just once she would like to have a choice in an election. But what she reminded us all of, was that if the population decided they didn’t like the present executive, the public could just throw them out of office. Wow. Now the next big story of the day is Kamala Harris. Here’s this: �And a little more from Sarahjane Smith (FB) on this: Oh, and BTW, since the racist birther crap 2.0 has already started with Biden’s choice of Harris for his running mate, it's been accepted precedent since 1881 that anyone born a US citizen can be president. It's irrelevant whether a parent was born abroad (Arthur, Hughes, Hoover, Obama) or whether the US citizen was born on foreign soil (George Romney 1968, John McCain 2008, Ted Cruz 2016) �I haven’t mentioned the virus today, but here’s a roundup from New Zealand and Australia. As of last night there were 56 active cases in Auckland. Remember they began this outbreak with 4 cases on Tuesday and by Friday that number had increased to 37. The others are from returning New Zealanders. In Melbourne Australia they are laboring through a strict lockdown. One condition is only one person from a household can be outside the house within a strictly enforced 5 km radius, at a time - both on foot or by car. Only one person from a household;d can shop for groceries at a time. The fines are huge something close to $1650AUS. Well if that doesn’t make you follow the rules..... Oh and masks are mandatory the minute you step outside your front door - running, walking, bike riding, driving. To add to that, I cannot provide the link but I watched Matthew McConaughey ask Dr Fauci 5 important virus questions. Dr Fauci answered comprehensively and explained the scientific terms as he spoke. Its much clearer in my mind now. One of Matthew’s questions was after effects and Dr Fauci said a disturbing number of people who had recovered from the virus were experiencing symptoms. The video is Now This, if you want to watch. To speak to ongoing symptoms, here’s this: The Atlantic: One question, answered: “Long-haulers” can suffer COVID-19 symptoms for weeks, even months. Are they contagious that whole time? Ed Yong, our science staff writer who covered the phenomenon, reports: The real answer is: We don’t know. The experts I’ve talked with have said that it’s unlikely people who experience months of symptoms are contagious for that entire time, and that their problems are more likely to do with some long-lasting misfiring of the immune system than a persistent reservoir of the virus. But the latter is still possible, and exists in other infectious diseases. This is a new virus, and scientists are still trying to understand it. It must be Oliver time! ��One of the next places we visited was Fanjeaux which is located west of Carcassonne. Between 1206 and 1215, Fanjeaux was the home of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church's Dominican Order, who preached to the Cathars in the area. There is an impressive monastery there and we just happened to visit on November 11 which is Armistice Day. Armistice Day is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France at 5:45 am, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. But, according to Thomas R. Gowenlock, an intelligence officer with the U.S. First Division, shelling from both sides continued for the rest of the day, only ending at nightfall. The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was only reached when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. Wikipedia �����At the top: Armistice Day flags; a monastery carving; Craig walking along a Fanjeaux street; monastery door knocker (I love this); and a wall plaque just because I loved that too. The New Normal: Elayne Clift of Saxtons River, Vt. No make-up, manicures, or matching clothes, Although I do miss the occasional massage. No big-girl shoes, or ironed shirts, or bothersome bras. No potluck pressure, or parties for which I “have prior plans,” No cheek-to-cheek kisses, or unwanted hugs, although One from a loved one would be grand. No worries about my hair, or how I look, Or for that matter, what I cook. No deadlines to meet, I’m happy to say, Except for an occasional library book, Although, I confess, some compensation, �For a class or oration, would be Cause for celebration. When this nasty bug is over and gone, It will occasion dance and song, And I will welcome that of course. But while enjoying its demise, With good cheer and libation, I have to admit, it’s likely that, I will miss the liberations. And finally, my new hair color, achieved at 7:30 in the morning in a deserted hair salon - just me and my hairdresser: �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-15_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-157 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-15 Title A name given to the resource Day 157 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d82042109455cb34d2810b216f5c7ac.pdf 51a1ceb0fe4ff6fdf39107974e656223 PDF Text Text Day 158 by windoworks This is a ‘give me a minute’ morning while I marshal my thoughts. In 24 more days I will have been writing this post for half a year. Life as I know it has changed completely and have you noticed? People have stopped talking about getting back to normal. Colleges and schools are slowly reopening and often quickly closing again. It amazes me that parents are saying: but what will I do with my children when I go back to work? Who exactly is going back to work outside the house? In my personal experience, I have one son and his wife locked down again in New Zealand; one daughter working from home in Sydney Australia; one son locked down completely in Melbourne Australia and a niece working shortened hours in a sparsely populated office in Cornwall England. Speaking of Elle, in her spare time she is creating custom made wall hangings and now has begun making Christmas decorations. You can mail order these and look up her site on Instagram at completeanduttercraft Here are some photos: ����In other news: There is a lot of discussion about COVID-19, about whether you’ll get it, will you be a bit sick or a lot sick or so sick you take yourself to hospital. One of Matthew McConaughey’s questions for Dr Fauci was: does your blood type make you more susceptible? And Dr Fauci’s answer was that Type A people were a tiny, weeny bit more susceptible than other blood groups. Oh dear. My youngest and I are Type A. I think we have to live in the New Now - that is cautiously. And we have to look after ourselves because if we can’t look after ourselves, how can we look after anyone else? Washington Post: �The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has already set records for being so active, with Hurricane Isaias being the earliest ninth named storm on record. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that many more records may fall in the coming months, as the Atlantic hurricane season cranks out at least 10 more named storms. The updated outlook released Thursday calls for a total of 19 to 25 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 7 to 11 are expected to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater), including three to six that could become major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater). This update covers the entire hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30, and therefore includes the nine named storms to date. So that’s cheery. Here are the stats for today: US - 5.37M cases, 55,348 new cases yesterday. 169K deaths, 1,190 new deaths yesterday. Michigan - 102K cases, 1,015 new cases yesterday. 6,586 deaths, 18 new deaths yesterday. Kent County - 7.060 cases, 41 new cases yesterday. 153 deaths, 0 deaths yesterday. This is just to make you laugh - or go Hmmm. How are grocery store workers doing? Lets see; Washington Post: Grocery workers across the country say morale is crushingly low as the pandemic wears on with no end in sight. Overwhelmed employees are quitting mid-shift. Those who remain say they are overworked, taking on extra hours, enforcing mask requirements and dealing with hostile customers. Most retailers have done away with hazard pay even as workers remain vulnerable to infection, or worse. Employees who took sick leave at the beginning of the pandemic say they cannot afford to take unpaid time off now, even if they feel unwell. The nation’s 2.7 million grocery workers make, on average, $13.20 an hour, or about $27,000 a year, �Commerce Department data shows. At least 130 U.S. grocery workers have died, and more than 8,200 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since late March, according to data from workers’ groups and media reports. Grocery stores are generally not required to inform shoppers about coronavirus cases or report them to local health departments, which can make it difficult to get an accurate count. Workers have tested positive for covid-19, but anyone who decides to self-quarantine is typically directed to take unpaid leave. And workers who try to call in sick often are being coaxed to come in. Managers are making decisions on their own, saying, ‘You have a cough but you’ll be okay.’ Grocery workers have been demeaned, screamed at and even assaulted for reminding shoppers of the new protocols, with some of the most egregious incidents captured on video and shared online. Illinois this week made it a felony to assault workers who are enforcing mask requirements. Well that’s certainly not reassuring and makes me even more cautious about shopping in person. And just in case you’ve been thinking about this too; The Atlantic One question, answered: What happens when the flu and the coronavirus overlap this winter? Joe Pinsker looks at why the pairing could spell trouble: Even though researchers don’t yet know how severe this year’s flu season will be, this overlap is worrying for three main reasons. First, even in the absence of a pandemic, flu season can tax hospitals’ beds and resources, having both the flu and COVID-19 spreading at once could further strain an already strained health-care system. Second, COVID compromises the respiratory system and so does flu, so each of them makes the other one worse. Everyone who’s able should get the flu vaccine this year. And third, because the two diseases have some symptoms in common, telling them apart can be difficult. On his early morning walk yesterday with Murphy, Craig saw this: ��This used to be a vegetable garden for the restaurants a friend of mine owns. He has cleverly decided it would be better as a social zone for his eateries all close by. Recently Craig read that 50% of all restaurants and cafes across America have closed and after the pandemic, 80% will have closed. Most nearby restaurants etc are promoting eating outside or take out food. Eating outside is wonderful in the spring, summer and fall but it will be difficult to maintain in the winter. Michigan gets some amount of snow and freezes each winter, so we’ll see how it goes. It must be time for Oliver. ��Each afternoon, somewhere between 5-6pm, Zoe FaceTimes us and every day Oliver is more grown up than the day before. He tests his limits every day and although Zoe thinks he really doesn’t understand No, I think he thinks she doesn’t mean it. He is almost walking and yesterday as we watched he took a step - and then sat down suddenly. Week 3 in France: we visited Albi. Eleven years before we had stayed overnight in Albi to watch a stage start in the 2005 Tour de France. This time we came for lunch and some sightseeing. ������Wikipedia:The first human settlement in Albi was in the Bronze Age (3000–600 BC). After the Roman conquest of Gaul in 51 BC, the town became Civitas Albigensium, the territory of the Albigeois, Albiga. Archaeological digs have not revealed any traces of Roman buildings, which seems to indicate that Albi was a modest Roman settlement.In 1208, the Pope and the French king joined forces to combat the Cathars, who had developed their own version of ascetic Christian dualism, and so a heresy considered dangerous by the dominant Catholic Church. Repression was severe, and many Cathars were burnt at the stake throughout the region. The area, until then virtually independent, was reduced to such a condition that it was subsequently annexed by the French Crown. From the top: inside the massive cathedral - here is the altar and the images of hell; the town square with the cathedral behind; the cathedral from the side; one of the cathedral’s side entrances and lastly a painting by Toulouse Lautrec. His wealthy family lived nearby Albi and there is a Toulouse Lautrec Art museum off the town square which was a former monastery. This was one of my favorite paintings. Every night after our daily excursions, we came home to this: ��It was Craig’s job to bring the wood up from the garage, tamp the fire down at night, clean out the grate each morning and lay the fire ready for lighting later in the afternoon. Here at home we have a fireplace converted to a closed gas fireplace and I would so like to reconvert it back - but its probably not practical. And the starter is broken and we are trying to find someone to fix it. A gas fire is better than nothing I guess. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-16_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-158 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-16 Title A name given to the resource Day 158 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/72b1dc16a3c4b7f94017de5b74555b9a.pdf 8176208ed92eebb323a06fda8bd07ab8 PDF Text Text Day 159 by windoworks �Some days you just have to laugh. Yesterday my neighbor Amy came over with some homegrown tomatoes. We have heirloom ones and an abundance of delicious cherry tomatoes and we had given Amy �a bag of cherry tomatoes the day before. Craig said: come up and sit at the other end of the porch and she did. For 30 minutes Amy and I talked about all sorts of things. - just like we used to before the pandemic. It was wonderful and it brightened up my whole day. Meanwhile Craig cleared out the basement, scraped peeling plaster off the basement walls, and ferried a whole lot of items up to the edge of our driveway. This time we didn’t even put a ‘free’ sign out. As of this morning there is an old mailbox and a folding table left. Every day at 1pm in New Zealand, the Prime Minister and her colleagues hold a press conference. Zar sends me the daily update. There was a total yesterday of 86 people moved to MIQ, a government quarantine facility. Its split into two separate parts - one for those Covid positive and the other for family of positive cases and some close contacts. 36 of the 86 are positive. And as far as testing goes, since January, 1 in 8 New Zealanders have been tested. They are encouraging masks and today Craig will mail Zoe, Asher, Zar and Alva 6 masks each, all courtesy of our friend Gina, a master quilter who has turned her quilting talents to mask making in recent months. This means that each mask is a thing of beauty. Thank you Gina. Shared from FaceBook, because Trump has begun appealing to white, middle class suburban housewives that their idyllic lifestyle may be in danger from low life, low income residents moving in : • Mr. President: • You have fundamentally misunderstood the character of the Suburban Housewives of 2020. • We are not the pearl-clutching, male dependent, racist, class-divided, paper dolls of your imagination. • We are Nasty Women; We are Angry Feminists; We are Employed; We are Fierce Protectors; • We are Equal Partners; We are Educated; • We are Generation X; We are Millennials; • We are Activists, Allies, and Leaders; • We are the Mothers of Generation Z. • We are BabyBoomers. • We are Breadwinners. • We are Every Race. • We are Self-Made. • We are Single. • We are LGBTQ • We are Not Afraid. • And We Are Done With You. • #suburbanhousewives2020 • #BidenHarris2020 �This morning I read that Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) has called the House back to interrogate (sorry, interview) Louis DeJoy and his Post Office minions about the current attack on the Post Office. Here’s a piece from Crooked Media: After President Trump’s Thursday confession that he’s starved the U.S. Postal Service of funds in order to gum up the processing of mail ballots, the mechanics of his ongoing scheme to steal the election began coming into clearer focus. The USPS general counsel has been warning states, including critical swing states, that their mail voting plans are inconsistent with the service’s new “delivery standards” of ‘not delivering the mail’ and that some voters who request—and even submit—their ballots in a timely fashion might nevertheless be disenfranchised. • These “delivery standards” more literally include reducing post office capacity to deliver mail, in response to an alleged lack of demand, then citing that reduced capacity as an impediment to pandemic levels of mail voting. Postmaster General/Trump election thief Louis DeJoy has implemented a secretive and unexplained policy of removing mail-sorting machines from facilities across the country, but disproportionately from swing states. In more than one state, they’ve also quietly removed actual mailboxes. This policy of destroying the mail to save the mail Trump’s presidency has led to widespread delivery delays, not just of coupons and junk mail but of payments and medicine and other things people need to survive. In Maine, 80,000 letters went undelivered because of a new policy requiring carriers to leave exactly on time, rather than wait 10 minutes for their trucks to be fully loaded. �Now I know that’s upsetting, distressing and making us all very angry. But I feel it is my responsibility to let you know this stuff. For months now I have been hearing in my mind: Just the facts Ma’am, just the facts. I kept asking Craig if he remembered this radio drama. I finally looked it up (what would I do without Google?) and it was Dragnet and it was said by the detective Joe Friday. I listened to this radio show as a young girl and I even remember the dramatic music. So, from me to you - just the facts (ma’am, sir), just the facts. I’ve had this tidbit in my big fat fact file (yes, that is really the name of the file) for so long I’ve lost where it came from: Despite the huge fall off in air travel this year, the Transportation Security Agency says it’s finding three times the number of guns in luggage at airport checkpoints. About 80% of these weapons were loaded I can’t think of a single reason why they would be loaded. And then there’s this: Washington Post: In Europe, cruise ships that incubated some of the world's earliest covid-19 outbreaks are getting ready to set sail again. The MSC Grandiosa is preparing to cruise the Mediterranean on Sunday — the first of several ships that will attempt to revive stalled the region's stalled tourism industries. “But it remains unclear how risky it might be for people to climb back onboard and restart an activity that, at the beginning of the pandemic, helped seed the virus around the world and was connected to several dozen deaths,” our world desk wrote. I don’t think I even need to comment on that one. Craig told me that he either heard or read that some cruise lines are thinking of running cruises that never dock anywhere. “If you look out your cabin window, ladies and gentlemen, you will see Venice on the port side.” Really? Just a luxurious, expensive hotel but on the water. Now here’s a long piece about the virus. From Yale Epidemiologist, Jonathan Smith: An important Covid Message Like any good scientist I have noticed two things that are either not being articulated or not present in the “literature” of social media. Specifically, I want to make two aspects of these measures very clear and unambiguous. First, we are in the beginning of this epidemic’s trajectory. That means even with these distancing measures we will see cases and deaths continue to rise globally, nationally, and in our own communities in the coming weeks. Second, this may lead some people to think that the social distancing measures are not working. They are. This is normal epidemic trajectory. Stay calm. We need everyone to hold the line as the epidemic inevitably gets worse. This is not my opinion; this is the unforgiving math of epidemics for which I and my colleagues have dedicated our lives to understanding. I want to help the community brace for this �impact. Stay strong and with solidarity knowing with absolute certainty that what you are doing is saving lives, even as people are getting sick and dying. While social distancing decreases contact with members of society, it typically increases your contacts with family members /very close friends. This small and obvious fact has surprisingly profound implications on disease transmission dynamics. Study after study demonstrates that even if there is only a little bit of connection between groups (i.e. social dinners, playdates/playgrounds, etc.), the epidemic isn’t much different than if there was no measure in place. Your entire family should function as a single individual unit; if one person puts themselves at risk, everyone in the unit is at risk. Seemingly small social chains get large and complex with alarming geometric speed. If your son visits his girlfriend, and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbor, your neighbor is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far. This virus is unforgiving to choices outside the rules. It will be easy to be drawn to the idea that what we are doing isn’t working and become paralyzed by fear, or to just 'cheat’ a little bit in the coming weeks.By knowing what to expect, and knowing the importance of maintaining these measures , my hope is to encourage continued community spirit, strategizing, and action to persevere in this time of uncertainty. �And just to make you laugh: ��Now Oliver. Remember that day at daycare that you were feeling kinda blue? ��Each day living in La Bastide, we always went out. Sometimes we just explored new roads and new places to walk. There were walking tracks everywhere and a ruined castle or fort on almost every hilltop. �����From the top: walking back to the car after walking up part of Gorge du Frau; the one and only time I tried climbing the trail up Montsegur; the intact tower of Rennes le Chateau; the Cathar memorial by the meadow where the Montsegur Cathars were burnt to death; and this photo is of the wonderful colors in the cliffs. This is me and all my nasty women friends and relatives �I’ll leave you with this: �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2020-08-17_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-159 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Benjamin, Pamela Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-17 Title A name given to the resource Day 159 Description An account of the resource Daily journal entry of Pamela Benjamin, spouse of GVSU history professor, Craig Benjamin, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally self-published on WordPress. Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Epidemics Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng