95 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3fd018dd0d89d310cbb63dc3bcd1e348.pdf 869dd813259b87d7731a494ad5482b39 PDF Text Text Day 275 by windoworks We are living in a country I don’t recognize. I feel like one of those reporters on the front line, trying to record what is happening on a daily basis while worrying for my safety. I am 71 years old. I never imagined this would be happening. I have always had a vivid imagination - but this is beyond even my comprehension. This is this morning’s piece from New York Times: Falsehoods and threats President Trump’s attempts to overturn the election result are very unlikely to succeed. For that reason, the effort can sometimes seem like a publicity stunt — an effort by Trump to raise money and burnish his image with his supporters. And it may well be all of those things. But it is also a remarkable campaign against American democracy. It has grown to include most Republican-run states, most Republican members of Congress and numerous threats of violence. I want to use today’s newsletter to explain it. The new centerpiece in the effort is a lawsuit that the state of Texas filed this week with the Supreme Court and that Trump supports. It claims that the election in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — suffered from “unconstitutional irregularities.” The suit is based on the same lies that Trump has been telling about voter fraud. In reality, there was no meaningful fraud, as local officials from both parties have concluded. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, came to the same conclusion. Nonetheless, the attorneys general of 17 states — including Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Utah, Arizona and the Dakotas — have backed the Texas lawsuit. Yesterday, more than half of House Republicans released a legal brief supporting it. “If they get their way in court (they won’t), they would break the country,” David French of The Dispatch, a conservative publication, wrote. They are doing so, as my colleagues Jeremy Peters and Maggie Habermanhave explained, largely because they believe that defying Trump would damage their standing with Republican voters By doing so, the politicians are “inflaming the public,” French noted, causing many voters to believe — wrongly — that a presidential election was unfair. And that belief is fueling an outbreak of violent threats against elections officials, including: • Dozens of Trump supporters, some armed, went to the home of Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, and began shouting obscenities. • On Twitter, Trump supporters have posted photographs of the home of Ann Jacobs, a Wisconsin official, and mentioned her children. • In Phoenix, about 100 Trump supporters, some armed, protested at the building where officials were counting votes. • In Vermont, officials received a voice message threatening them with “execution by firing squad.” �• Seth Bluestein, a Philadelphia official, received anti-Semitic and violent threats after Pam Bondi, a Trump ally, publicly mentioned him. • A Georgia poll worker went into hiding after a viral video falsely claimed he had discarded ballots. • Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, and his wife have received death threats, including by text message, and caravans have circled their house. • Gabriel Sterling, another Georgia official, received a message wishing him a happy birthday and saying it would be his last. A swing state responds: In a Supreme Court filing, Pennsylvania called the Texas lawsuit part of a “cacophony of bogus claims,” a “seditious abuse of the judicial process” and “an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.” The hidden cost of this performance is that the pandemic is pushed aside as of no importance in Trump’s bid to hold onto power in any way he can think of. Let’s be clear: this is the behavior of a dictator, who �having lost the election legitimately, now seeks to overturn the very rules on which this country stands. And a large portion of the sitting Republicans are supporting him. And meanwhile, the case numbers continue rising and the deaths are rising too. The US will reach 16M cases by Sunday and the deaths will reach 300K by Sunday also. Last night our block book club held a zoom meeting and one member was nearing the end of her quarantine period after her son’s partner tested positive (after their Thanksgiving gathering) and another member said members of her extended family had gathered for Thanksgiving and now all those present had tested positive and her uncle was in hospital on a ventilator. Two of Craig’s students have had to contend with overbearing irate customers at their workplace, educated people who refused to wear a mask and who shouted loudly at them - 18 year old teenagers put in charge of regulating the customers entering. I believe the words: you’re just a child! How dare you tell me what i can and cannot do! were the ones shouted loudly. ��And here’s a profound story. Yesterday during his zoom class, Craig showed the students 2 videos of our grandson, as part of his reason for retiring and returning to Australia to live. The students thought Oliver was cute, but what drew the most response from them, firstly for the video of Oliver eating some brownie with a fork in a cafe was: where’s everyone’s masks? Don’t they have to wear masks? Are they allowed to eat inside a cafe? Are these people all in the same bubble? Don’t they have the virus in Australia? Secondly, for the toy shop video they wondered: is everyone allowed to wander around the shop like that? Look at all the children touching and picking up things - are they allowed to do that? To me, that described the difference between Australia/New Zealand and the US. Of course they had people who refused to do as they were asked in both those countries - and they were fined and some were jailed. Here we have sheriffs who won’t enforce the rules which have been made to protect us. We spend a lot of time saying: imagine what it would be like if.... Trump had worn a mask, if Hillary had won the election and so on. I realize why we do it, but in some ways in makes us feel worse. Everyone keeps saying: it’ll be all right once Biden is in the White House. Some days I wonder if we will ever get to that point. It seems the Republicans are doing their best to trash the Constitution or make it such an outdated collection of rules that it will become irrelevant going forward. Certainly, should the Supreme Court even entertain the thought of considering this legal brief, they too will become outmoded and irrelevant. We will enter the ‘anything goes’ phase but to be honest, I think we’ve been in that phase for some time now. From Crooked Media: • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has single handedly shot down the bipartisan stimulus proposal in negotiations, continuing to block urgently needed aid because it didn’t include a provision to let companies off the hook for negligently exposing workers to coronavirus. That move came as new unemployment claims rose sharply to 853,000, up 137,000 from the week before. • It’s difficult to fathom the full cruelty of McConnell’s obstruction. Hunger is chronic across the country, at unprecedented levels—one in eight Americans reported not having enough to eat in late November. People are increasingly shoplifting food in order to survive, and a $4.5 billion federal food program that was meant to provide support through the end of the year has run out of money and ended early in many areas. Things will get drastically worse when eviction moratoriums and other aid programs expire at the end of December, unless someone’s able to tape McConnell’s eyes open and tie him up in front of It’s a Wonderful Life within the next week. So now that we’re all very depressed, here comes Oliver to brighten your day: �When in doubt, getting into the block box means you have access to the best �blocks. �You want me to make that? Listen, my hands are really small. Just sayin’, And in the ‘Is that Hope?’ category: last night my neighbor who’s a nurse, told us that the Pfizer vaccine was in Grand Rapids, under guard by the National Guard. The Festive Season is almost upon us. For safety’s sake, have a quiet holiday. You’ll never know which relative is contagious. � 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_2020-12-11_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-275 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 2020-12-11 Title A name given to the resource Day 275 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/f49f836ff5249afc0ce8c177760ce946.pdf e6ea98db59a675fdef0443f10565c3ba PDF Text Text Day 276: Saturday December 12 by windoworks Washington Post The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a long-shot bid by President Trump and the state of Texas to overturn the results in four states won by Democrat Joe Biden, blocking the president’s legal path to reverse his reelection loss. The court’s unsigned order was short: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.” Well that’s a relief. But let’s think about the consequences of these actions. Here’s Crooked Media’s take on it all: • While the Court’s ultimate answer was always destined to be “no, you morons,” the popularity of the request itself is a five-alarm garbage fire. By Friday, the attorneys general of 17 states and 126 House Republicans had signed onto Texas’s nonsensical and seditious lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn election results in four other states and thus nationwide. (So had one spellingchallenged attorney representing “New California” and “New Nevada.” Deeply normal stuff.) Those GOP House members included Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. A staggering swath of the GOP took the very small leap from silently refusing to acknowledge Joe Biden won the election, to proudly enlisting in an attempted coup. • That this latest effort’s failure was assured doesn’t make it any less appalling, and attorneys general for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia reacted accordingly, in scathing briefs �urging the Supreme Court to reject the lawsuit. Here’s Pennsylvania, not fucking around: “The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.” On Friday Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) wrote a letter to House leaders asking them to consider not seating the 126 members trying to overturn the election, based on a section of the 14th Amendment that specifically forbids members of Congress from doing a treason. • Unless Republicans face some kind of sanction for this, there’s no reason to think it won’t become their new default for whenever they lose elections. • All of it could have been avoided had Trump put on some big boy pants and promptly conceded, but every elected official who’s supported his claims—whether in amicus briefs or in silence—bears responsibility for developments like this: A website threatening election officials has surfaced, and is now under investigation by the FBI and intelligence agencies. The site included photos of election officials with rifle crosshairs superimposed on them, as well as their home addresses. And that’s the scary thought: “Unless Republicans face some kind of sanction for this, there’s no reason to think it won’t become their new default for whenever they lose elections”. Not seating the 126 Republicans who jumped happily on this bandwagon, seems like a reasonable consequence. Perhaps a Senate inquiry? Perhaps a reaffirmation of the oath taken as new congress members are sworn in? Perhaps promises of litigation for all those involved? Remember they all signed the letter. And of course, unlimited litigation for Trump - years and years of court proceedings with bail set at 2 billion dollars. I want so much trouble for Trump that supporters begin to deny their support, by saying “I never trusted that man”. I want every flag, banner and yard sign taken down and burnt on a bonfire in the back garden. And I want History to judge them all in as factual and accurate terms as possible, and those books to be the feature of Trump’s library - should he have the balls to build one. And as an addendum to the Texas long shot - apparently (and this might be a rumor - the Texas Republican Party wants to secede from the US. Um, how would that work? Here’s a story that seems appropriate: Politico Prior to Joe Biden’s move into the White House, the presidential residence will receive a muchneeded deep cleaning treatment, a spokesperson for the General Services Administration has revealed to Politico. There have been over 40 COVID-19-positive people in President Donald Trump’s circle, raising questions about the dangers that will be lurking when Biden’s team moves in. As recently as Wednesday, Trump appeared bare-faced during a Hanukkah party with hundreds of guests at the White House. Since the coronavirus can stick to surfaces for days, the GSA has said it will deploy a team to �“thoroughly clean and disinfect” all the surfaces in the East and West Wings of the White House. The building will also undergo “disinfectant misting services” to clean the air after the Trump team’s departure. Contrary to Trump, Biden and his team have been taking careful precautions to ensure the president-elect does not become infected with the virus. His team wears masks both indoors and outdoors when together, and much of the transition staff is still working remotely. That will continue into the first months of his administration, his team has said. This article below was sent to me from a reader and I am just adding it today - the last few days have been overwhelmed by insane behavior by the Republicans. �New York Times People infected with the coronavirus may shed extremely high amounts of virus in their stool even before they show symptoms — if they ever do — suggesting that testing wastewater may offer health officials a way to spot budding community outbreaks early, researchers have found. Scientists at M.I.T. and elsewhere compared coronavirus concentrations in sewage from an urban treatment facility in Massachusetts with Covid-19 cases in the same area and found that changes in coronavirus levels in wastewater preceded rises and falls in positive test results by four to 10 days. Their study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but the findings, along with those in a study published in the October issue of Nature Biotechnology by Yale researchers, suggest that sewage surveillance could play an important role in helping contain the pandemic. So although its not routinely monitored across the country, scientists are aware of the value of sewage to expose virus infection clusters. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved and authorized for emergency use. My pharmacists best estimate is that we might be able to get vaccinated by April - and it will be the Moderna vaccine as their pharmacy doesn’t have the capacity to store the Pfizer vaccine, which has to be kept at extremely low temperatures. Science Alert But getting the vaccine doesn't mean you can resume daily activities of pre-coronavirus living, at least initially, Debra Goff, an infectious-disease pharmacist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Centre, told Business Insider. "I think people's perception is you get the vaccine and you're safe and finally we can stop all this masking and social distancing and stuff, but that's not actually reality," Goff, also a pharmacy professor at OSU, said. The reality is it will take time to learn how well, if at all, the vaccine protects people around those who are vaccinated, and likely longer to reach a level of herd immunity that can allow us all to let down our guards, or at least our masks. "A vaccine is the first step to helping us return to pre-COVID normality," Goff said. "It's not the endall." Here's what you can and can't do after getting the vaccine. You can start to make tentative plans for the future Experts have projected that aspects of pre-COVID life will begin to resume in spring 2021 and inch closer to the old normal by the year's end. Once you're vaccinated, you can, quite frankly, have more confidence that you'll be around to embrace that shift. That means planning a short May getaway, for instance, might come with fewer headaches than the same trip this past May, and planning a 2021 Thanksgiving can likely resemble a 2019 Turkey Day more than a 2020 one. �Vaccination is still over 4 months away, and those 4+ months are promising to be dire. Yesterday I guessed that we would reach 16M cases here in the US by Sunday. I was wrong. We reached that milestone yesterday with 280,514 new cases in one day. The deaths have reached 296K with 2,951 new deaths recorded, also in one day. The numbers they are positing for January and February are too dreadful to contemplate. And I want to add here: many of the daily cases are very ill people who only go to the hospital when they are struggling to breathe. Furthermore, the 2, 951 deaths yesterday are loved family members or dear friends - all gone, never to be seen again. And to remind ourselves: most of these people, of all ages, died alone with only a heavily protected medical team to witness their death. I have joined a FaceBook group which monitors business establishments and medical facilities and their adherence to masking. I have read reports of all kinds of establishments and their compliance or non compliance to the covid rules. So the many members of this group know clearly which shops etc to frequent and which to avoid. Interestingly, a bad review has made many establishments up their game in order to win back customers. Oliver! Yesterday Zoe was exhausted and Oliver was tired and cranky so his Daddy, Christian, took him back to his place to give Zoe a much needed break. Here’s Christian’s photo under the heading: nobody’s impressed �The next day in Barcelona, while most of the travelers disembarked and new ones embarked, we did some sightseeing on our own. �Christopher Columbus pointing to the New World. This statue is in La Rambla La Rambla is �a street in central Barcelona. A tree-lined pedestrian street, it stretches for 1.2 km connecting the Plaça de Catalunya in its center with the Christopher Columbus Monument at Port Vell. La Rambla forms the boundary between the neighbourhoods of the Barri Gòtic to the east and the El Raval to the west. Wikipedia One of Columbus’s ships in the Museu Maritim de Barcelona. �This is a Caravel, the flagship of the Spanish King, Phillip II, used at the Battle of Letanto in 1571. Inside there are benches where the slaves sat who rowed the ship when there was no wind to fill the sails. Apparently the smell from the chained slaves was horrendous when the wind changed and if it blew ahead of the ship in battle, it gave warning to enemy ships close by. �Barcelona Cathedral �Choir stalls in the cathedral �The charming Gothic Quarter, or Barri Gòtic, has narrow medieval streets filled with trendy �bars, clubs and Catalan restaurants. The Museu d'Història de Barcelona shows remains of the Roman city. Artisans sell leather and jewelry near the Cathedral of Barcelona, while flower stalls and street-food vendors line busy avenue La Rambla. The Plaça del Pi, named after the adjacent Gothic church, hosts a weekend art market. ― Google That’s it for today. Always try to keep yourself and others safe by wearing your mask, standing 6-10 feet apart and no socializing indoors. � 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_2020-12-12_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-276 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 2020-12-12 Title A name given to the resource Day 276 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/c4229817acc7b83b1393b78e26f609e1.pdf 6bf2c765485c7cf9c9393cba63309554 PDF Text Text Day 277 by windoworks There are two main stories to consider this morning, and both are equally overwhelming in their importance. Let us begin with this: �What astonishes me is that every time a fraudulent challenge is thrown out of court, Trump issues statements like: we have only just begun to fight. Trump is fighting for the presidency and control of the Republican Party. He cannot maintain his hold on the presidency, he will have to leave the White House and he will suddenly be without the privileges of the presidency. This does mean accountability for his personal misdemeanors and crimes and New York State attorneys have their cases well in hand. But no one seems to be able to break his hold on the majority of the Republican Congress members. New York Times The Supreme Court repudiation of President Trump’s desperate bid for a second term not only shredded his effort to overturn the will of voters: It also was a blunt rebuke to Republican leaders in Congress and the states who were willing to damage American democracy by embracing a partisan power grab over a free and fair election. The court’s decision on Friday night, an inflection point after weeks of legal flailing by Mr. Trump and ahead of the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday, leaves the president’s party in an extraordinary position. Through their explicit endorsements or complicity of silence, much of the G.O.P. leadership now shares responsibility for the quixotic attempt to ignore the nation’s founding principles and engineer a different verdict from the one voters cast in November. Many regular Republicans supported this effort, too — a sign that Mr. Trump has not just bent the party to his will, but pressed a mainstay of American politics for nearly two centuries into the service of overturning an election outcome and assaulting public faith in the electoral system. “The act itself by the 126 members of the United States House of Representatives, is an affront to the country,” said Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “It’s an offense �to the Constitution and it leaves an indelible stain that will be hard for these 126 members to wipe off their political skin for a long time to come.” And it meant that Republican leaders now stand for a new notion: that the final decisions of voters can be challenged without a basis in fact if the results are not to the liking of the losing side, running counter to decades of work by the United States to convince developing nations that peaceful transfers of power are key to any freely elected government’s credibility. “There is an anti-democratic virus that has spread in mainstream Republicanism, among mainstream Republican elected officials,” said Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project at the A.C.L.U. “And that loss of faith in the machinery of democracy is a much bigger problem than any individual lawsuit.” Did I mention that the Republican extremists in Texas would like to band together with the other extremist Republicans in those another states that aided and abetted the Supreme Court insanity, to form the Red States of America - because they believe they are the only people following the Constitution. Wait, what? I own a copy of the Constitution and it doesn’t say form a coup to overthrow the legitimate election, anywhere. And across the world, this is the common thought. From Der Spiegel, a German newspaper who just named Trump as LOSER OF THE YEAR: "Nothing is normal under Trump," the article added. “He refuses to admit defeat. Instead, he speaks of massive electoral fraud, although there is no evidence for it. The whole thing is not surprising. Trump's presidency ends as it began. Without decency and without dignity." Sadly, that seems to be how the whole country is seen globally - without decency and without dignity. And , of course, this happened yesterday: Washington Post: Thousands of maskless rallygoers who refuse to accept the results of the election turned downtown Washington into a falsehood-filled spectacle Saturday, two days before the electoral college will make the president’s loss official. In smaller numbers than their gathering last month, they roamed from the Capitol to the Mall and back again, seeking inspiration from speakers who railed against the Supreme Court, Fox News and Presidentelect Joe Biden. The crowds cheered for recently pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, marched with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and stood in awe of a flyover from what appeared to be Marine One. �Numbers: the US is now at 16.2M total cases and again, my prediction is that we will be at 17M or above, by Thursday. Deaths are now at 298K and I suspect we will be over 300K deaths in total by Tuesday. These numbers are both unbelievable and meaningless. Unless we (a) reach the peak soon and/or (b) people behave responsibly over the holidays, I can’t imagine how this will end - or if it will end. At least the vaccine has begun to be moved (under strict armed guard, of course) to all 50 states. It is up to each state to decide who is vaccinated first and then the descending order. There is no federal guidelines to follow, because that would mean the President and his cronies would have to think of something other than themselves. We have a fabulous team at the helm of Michigan and I trust the decisions they make. Hopefully Craig and I will be vaccinated in full before we fly back to Australia, but we will quarantine if required and then see about vaccinations there. It is about 202 sleeps until we leave and the to do list is steadily growing. Another milestone later today which if successful, I will tell you about tomorrow. �You may have seen a new story about Grand Valley. Yesterday a jogger came across a body on campus. It appears it was a student and thorough police investigations are underway. Craig had an email from a panicky student last night who was too scared to go outside and pack her car to leave campus. She assumed (through rampant rumors) that the student had been murdered. Craig was able to calm her down, but there is still no news about the body. So Oliver. ��Our first port on the second of three cruises, was Ibiza. Ibiza is one of the Balearic islands, an archipelago of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea. It's well known for the lively nightlife in Ibiza Town and Sant Antoni, where major European nightclubs have summer outposts. It’s also home to quiet villages, yoga retreats and beaches, from Platja d'en Bossa, lined with hotels, bars and shops, to quieter sandy coves backed by pineclad hills found all around the coast. ― Google Docking In Ibiza �Lower �town �Cruising the shops, of course Ibiza downtown from the fort �A small village �The fort �Our ship from the �dock Just sayin’ � 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_2020-12-13_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-277 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 2020-12-13 Title A name given to the resource Day 277 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/adb035412d376d668e274951b844bf93.pdf 98b4b326558b8c8da3d345a3b4322af3 PDF Text Text Day 278 by windoworks Two big events today. The Electoral College meets to formally decide the winner of the 2020 Presidential election. From Wikipedia: Each state appoints electors according to its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (senators and representatives). Federal office holders cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, an absolute majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president. And further: In nearly every state, the candidate who gets the most votes wins the "electoral votes" for that state, and gets that number of voters (or "electors") in the "Electoral College." Now as Joe Biden has 306 electoral votes and Donald Trump has 232 electoral votes - you would assume (quite rightly) that Joe Biden has conclusively won the election. But as we have discovered, much to our dismay, that winning the election by 306 electoral votes and almost 80M popular votes - that Biden has it in the bag, but an astounding number of sitting Republicans and the entire White House contingent refuse to believe that Trump has lost. Certainly Joe and Kamala have proceeded with appointments and programs believing steadfastly that they have won, and at least half or more of all voters believe Joe and Kamala have won too. I remember when 9/11 happened and we sat in our living room in Australia, I said to Craig: nothing will ever be the same again. Now, because of the pandemic, nothing will ever be the same again. But more importantly, politically, nothing will ever be the same again. I did say to Craig: this might tear this country in two. And here it is, beginning to happen in front of my eyes. Now before you say: stop being dramatic, Pamela! Things will return to normal - think on this - do you, dear reader, trust the electoral system? Do you believe that elections in the future will be run fairly and that the winner will truly be the winner? Will it become the norm for outgoing presidents, fairly voted out of office, refuse to concede? Try every trick in the book to stay in power? And here’s a deeper question: should the elected president, the once declared Leader of the Western World, the person who influences everything globally - should it be a person of integrity or just the person with the most money and biggest desire for all that power? Should the President of the United States be the person with the strongest ethic of care for all Americans - or just someone who wants to gain as much for themselves and doesn’t care about the rest of America? We have had two perfect examples of this conundrum. First Barack Obama who led this country with care and forethought, who surrounded himself with talented, educated people and who always understood his job and its responsibility. Second there was Donald Trump, the ultimate flim flam man, who’s overriding goal was to secure as much for himself and his family as possible. Who showed plainly that if it didn’t benefit big business, then he wasn’t interested. And who showed us, time and again, that he had no �conception of a duty of care. If we had had a less stellar president before Trump, perhaps it wouldn’t have been such a shock. But I believe the deeper concern is the fact that Trump got elected in the first place. His campaign was centered on: ‘drain the swamp’ and make America Great Again. Have we all noticed that he did neither? I realize that campaign promises are one thing and most elected officials do not follow up on all their promises (or even any), but to add a lot to the swamp and to make America into no longer great or a leading country globally, seems detrimental to all US citizens. Years ago in Australia, we had a Prime Minister, John Howard, who’s dearest wish for the country was to return it to the ‘safety and security’ of the 1950s. I think John was very surprised when most Australians thought that was a very bad idea and the country should be looking forward, rather than backward. Trump wanted America for his own gain and he thought reestablishing racism, establishing even bigger gaps between the haves and the have nots (and worse, the have nothings) , and demolishing environmental controls and much more, would be what most Americans wanted, because it was what he wanted. Yesterday the Atlantic published a piece on Trump’s legacy. It was very long and I have edited it. It is still long but my edited version describes Trump and his presidency perfectly. To assess the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency, start by quantifying it. Since last February, more than a quarter of a million Americans have died from COVID-19—a fifth of the world’s deaths from the disease, the highest number of any country. In the three years before the pandemic, 2.3 million Americans lost their health insurance, accounting for up to 10,000 “excess deaths”; millions more lost coverage during the pandemic. The United States’ score on the human-rights organization Freedom House’s annual index dropped from 90 out of 100 under President Barack Obama to 86 under Trump, below that of Greece and Mauritius. Trump withdrew the U.S. from 13 international organizations, agreements, and treaties. The number of refugees admitted into the country annually fell from 85,000 to 12,000. About 400 miles of barrier were built along the southern border. The whereabouts of the parents of 666 children seized at the border by U.S. officials remain unknown.Trump reversed 80 environmental rules and regulations. The national debt increased by $7 trillion, or 37 percent. America under Trump became less free, less equal, more divided, more alone, deeper in debt, swampier, dirtier, meaner, sicker, and deader. It also became more delusional. No number from Trump’s years in power will be more lastingly destructive than his 25,000 false or misleading statements. Trump’s lies were different. They belonged to the postmodern era. They were assaults against not this or that fact, but reality itself. They spread beyond public policy to invade private life, clouding the mental faculties of everyone who had to breathe his air, dissolving the very distinction between truth and falsehood. Trump’s barrage of falsehoods—as many as 50 daily in the last fevered months of the 2020 campaign—complemented his unconcealed brutality. Lying was another variety of shamelessness. Just as �he said aloud what he was supposed to keep to himself, he lied again and again about matters of settled fact—the more brazen and frequent the lie, the better. Two days after the polls closed, with the returns showing him almost certain to lose, Trump stood at the White House podium and declared himself the winner of an election that his opponent was trying to steal. Within a week of Election Day, false claims of voter fraud in swing states had received almost 5 million mentions in the press and on social media. In one poll, 70 percent of Republican voters concluded that the election hadn’t been free or fair. And that was Trump’s purpose—to keep us locked in a mental prison where reality was unknowable so that he could go on wielding power, whether in or out of office, including the power to destroy. So here we are. And the pandemic? Yesterday the US reached 16.4M cases and 299K deaths. In our combined local hospitals (Butterworth and Blodgett) there are (as of Thursday) 300 covid patients, 60 in the ICU and about 50 on respirators. Yesterday my neighbor told me of a consulting doctor who was working as a nurse locally, because they are so short staffed. The vaccine has been delivered (from its laboratory in Kalamazoo- yay, Michigan) all across the country. Although we are down the list for vaccinations, it is still fabulous to see it being properly dispersed. Of course that means no change in restrictions - but there is a light at the very far end of the tunnel. Light relief: Oliver at daycare. ��The other development I mentioned did happen but I will let you know about it later in the week. Aaannnnd its snowing. 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_2020-12-14_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-278 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 2020-12-14 Title A name given to the resource Day 278 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/3a25c1a1f101d9af02bc4dc0716ab3ff.pdf e7982c120f932a4692182dcc80248576 PDF Text Text Day 279 by windoworks The Atlantic Simple acts like wearing a mask and staying at home, which rely on people tolerating discomfort for the collective good, became society’s main defenses against the virus in the many months without effective drugs or vaccines. These are known as nonpharmaceutical interventions—a name that betrays medicine’s �biological bias. For most of 2020, these were the only interventions on offer, but they were nonetheless defined in opposition to the more highly prized drugs and vaccines. Good morning. Yesterday was a momentous day. The first doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered. Here’s a photo we may never forget: Sandra Lindsay Crooked Media The first vaccine doses in the U.S. were administered on Monday, starting with Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse at New York’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center whose face will forever prompt a generation of Americans to reflexively burst into tears. (Weird life ahead for Sandra.) Nearly three million Pfizer doses will arrive at 636 locations over the next several days, and assuming everything went as planned, 145 sites in all 50 states—mostly health-care facilities—received doses on Monday. The beginning of the end has begun. And also from Crooked Media: The U.S. coronavirus vaccine rollout began on the same day the official coronavirus death toll surpassed 300,000—a poignant reminder that a vaccine is no substitute for leadership with basic regard for human life. Trump has only a few more weeks in the White House, but by his own design, the worst of the damage he’s caused may outlast him. �And then this: • . Trump has (at least publicly) reversed course on a plan to prioritize vaccine access for White House staff, after the New York Times reported on Sunday that the very people who catastrophically mismanaged the pandemic and personally seeded deadly coronavirus outbreaks would be among the first to receive protection in short supply. For some reason, people got mad at that. • The Trump administration has only arranged funding for the vaccination of frontline medical workers and long-term care facility residents, and cash-strapped states must spend anything they can scrape together from the CARES Act by December 31, leaving no funding whatsoever to vaccinate the vast majority of the population. By not planning past the first phase and blocking further aid for state and local governments, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have effectively left Joe Biden a time bomb, sabotaging his administration’s pandemic cleanup at the expense of yet more American lives. And although Donald Trump, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani all received the absolute gold standard of care for their Covid infections, everyone else infected in or at the White House did not. Here is a sobering story, also from Crooked Media: Crede Bailey, the director of the White House security office, is recovering after three months in the hospital with coronavirus. Bailey lost his right foot and lower leg as a result of his illness, the most severe coronavirus case known to be connected to Trump-White House superspreading. �New York Times: In the coming weeks, major airlines including United, JetBlue and Lufthansa plan to introduce a health passport app, called CommonPass, that aims to verify passengers’ coronavirus test results — and perhaps soon, vaccinations. CommonPass notifies users of local travel rules — like having to provide proof of a negative virus test — and then aims to check that they have met them. How many people will refuse to get tested before flying? At this time, people are still being taken off planes because they refuse to wear a mask. I had a really weird moment a couple of days ago. We were driving past a store and Craig said to me: they seem to be doing well. And because he said that, I turned and looked inside. You know that moment when you think - what is wrong in this picture? And it takes a moment for you to recognize what is out of place. There were a number of customers in the store and way at the back the staff member was facing a customer and laughing. How did I know she was laughing? Yes! You guessed it. She wasn’t wearing a mask. Wait, what? Shouldn’t the customers have turned around and walked out the moment they saw no masks being worn? I read a long article about the vaccine and here are some salient points. We need 75-80% of all Americans to be vaccinated for the virus to be contained. You need 2 shots, 3-4 weeks apart for the full effect of the vaccine to occur. If you forget to get the second shot, never mind, get it as soon as you remember. �We will still have to wear masks until at least 2 weeks after the second shot as they don’t know if we are transmitting the virus through our breath. It may become an annual vaccine, the same as the flu vaccine. Scientists are not sure how long the vaccine’s effect lasts. There will be some reaction to the vaccine, mostly after the second shot. It is usually a 24 hour period of aches, pains and fatigue. Over the counter pain relief helps. Some people have had a similar reaction to their annual flu shot. Dr Fauci hopes that life may return to some sort of normal by fall 2021. I don’t remember normal too clearly. This has been a tough year. There are 16 more days of 2020 left and I am hoping that 2021 is so much better. Last night I watched President-Elect Joe Biden give an online speech after the Electoral College confirmed his win. This morning I received the speech in my inbox, beginning with Dear Pamela and concluding with simply: Joe. Here is a portion I think we all need to hear and absorb: Even more stunning, 17 Republican Attorneys General and 126 Republican Members of Congress actually signed on to a lawsuit filed by the State of Texas. It asked the United States Supreme Court to reject the certified vote counts in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials in one group of states to try to get the Supreme Court to wipe out the votes of more than twenty million Americans in other states and to hand the presidency to a candidate who lost the Electoral College, lost the popular vote, and lost each and every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse. It’s a position so extreme we’ve never seen it before. A position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused to respect the rule of law, and refused to honor our Constitution. Respecting the will of the people is at the heart of our democracy — even when we find those results hard to accept. And just in case you thought it was game over Trump, here’s this from Crooked Media: • The Trump campaign plans to run ads claiming the election was stolen, which ought to calm things down. I’m tired of this. Are you tired of this too? This morning the numbers are bad. Here’s a roundup: US 16.6M cases. I want to point out that this number represents the number of people who tested positive. There are many, many other people out there who are positive but untested. The total US deaths yesterday �reached 301K. I can see we’re on track for 400K by the end of February. In Kent County we have a total so far of 39,597 cases and 455 deaths. On Sunday as we were driving along 28th Street, we noticed 2 long lines of cars, snaking around a parking lot. It was as we went past and looked back that we realized they were waiting for testing. Thats the first time I’ve seen that here. Here’s something that caused a furor - a male Bachelor of Arts degree qualified lecturer at a college decided to take Jill Biden to task for calling herself Dr Jill Biden. He argued that she wasn’t a Doctor of Medicine, so she didn’t have the right to use that term. When you receive your doctorate at university, it is actually a Doctor of Philosophy, because that’s where the term comes from. According to Keith Allan Noble (1994), the first doctoral degree was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150. The doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany as the terminal teacher's credential in the 17th century (circa 1652). Wikipedia So there we have it. Jill Biden is a Doctor of Philosophy and she has every right to use the appellation “Dr.” He further insulted her by calling her ‘kiddo’. To illustrate the truly classy and talented woman Dr Jill Biden is, here’s her response: �Are we finally seeing the rise of the Matriarchal society? I certainly hope so. Remember: I am woman, hear me roar. Lastly, Oliver. �Really? You’re painting my foot green. Why? �Some of you may have noticed I am not posting the next port on our journey. Be patient, it will return but not today. � 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_2020-12-15_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-279 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 2020-12-15 Title A name given to the resource Day 279 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/65d2c5001a06454fdaf27ae0447e9f45.pdf 534b00abe53a43f88d9c65ab9091c01c PDF Text Text Day 280. by windoworks Crooked Media Security officials and terrorism researchers have characterized the widespread right-wing embrace of conspiracy theories as “mass radicalization,” which you don’t love to see. Domestic-terrorism analysts have warned in conferences, agency meetings, and op-eds that the line between mainstream and fringe conservatism is disappearing, with serious security implications. At an online Depolarization Summit, Elizabeth Neumann, who resigned from DHS in April over the administration’s failure to address the threat of domestic extremism, emphasized the danger of the right-wing propaganda machine in amplifying disinformation: "Breaking through that echo chamber is critical or else we'll see more violence.” How to go about that is less clear, but analysts agree that getting Trump out of the White House is a helpful first step. �There are more and more days on which I think to myself: you can’t make this stuff up. You would think that by this date and after the Electoral College had voted, this election would be a done deal. Certainly Joe Biden and Kamala Harris continue to move forward with their plans for the White House. Yesterday Biden tapped Jennifer Granholm for an Environmental position and insiders say he will tap Pete Buttigieg for Secretary of Transport. Biden and Harris’s task will be mammoth. Yesterday Trump’s administration overturned the regulations on showerheads. The what on the where? Apparently, in this time of climate crisis, when rivers and dams are drying up and large swathes of farmland is suffering from drought, Trump thought we were all hanging out for more water to waste in our showers. Right. This reminds me of a time, some years ago, when a good friend of Craig’s came to visit from Australia. At that time, large portions of Australia was in the grip of a devastating drought and in big cities there were strict rules enforced for water usage. You couldn’t water your garden except for 1 hour a day, and then only standing holding a hose (no sprinklers allowed). You had to wash your car using a bucket of water only and everyone was allowed a 2 minute shower once a day. Many people hooked up the outflow from the washing machine to water their gardens, my mother-in-law included. So when this friend came to stay and realized we had no such restrictions, he splashed more water around the bathroom than I have ever seen - because he could. I believe it is important for us all to be water conscious and treat it with respect. Here in the Great Lakes this year, the lakes have risen to all time highs - but this is cyclical. Some years the lakes have been at all time lows.. So has Trump damaged our democracy beyond repair? From the New York Times: Here at home, Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat is his most blatant threat to democracy. He has generated worrisome precedents and undermined shared assumptions about what happens after an incumbent loses. His bizarre legal strategy has failed, but he has turned the base of the Republican Party and many congressional Republicans against valuing democracy for its own sake. And those values are the ultimate source of democratic resilience. The trouble for those wanting to put this period behind them is that it’s hard to assess whether the damage is lasting until it’s too late. Our democracy has survived for now, but we don’t yet know whether some crucial democratic institutions bent so far that faced with the next test, they’ll break. In short, Republicans are establishing a new normal for the conduct of elections, one in which a Democratic victory is suspect until proven otherwise, and where Republicans have a “constitutional right” to challenge the vote in hopes of having it thrown out. I guess my question is: is this new normal to be used by Democrats as well? Sometimes when you set a dangerous precedent in place, it comes back to bite you on the bum. Remember: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. �And now from the Michigan strong women, of which I am proud to be one: ��And that’s something that I have observed since Trump won the presidency - American women from young girls through to great grandmothers - stood up and made themselves heard. I do own a pink pussycat hat. A woman who made them for the first Women’s March was giving them away, and she gave me one. My friends and I marched in Grand Rapids on a very cold day, in tandem with the first Women’s Marches all around the world. We could get into a long diatribe about the power of women, but I am sure you already know how powerful we really are and how much more we are showing that power than before. On the pandemic front there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the Moderna vaccine is almost in distribution which gives us another strong tool to use in the fight with the virus. Last night my neighbor who is a nurse leader at the local Neonatal ICU, posted that her vaccination had been scheduled! The bad news is that nationally, both the number of positive cases and the death toll continue to sharply rise. As I write this morning, the case numbers reached 16.8M yesterday and that means today we will reach 17M cases. The deaths stand at 304K from yesterday’s count. It is scary to think that we may reach 400K deaths in the foreseeable future. And in local other news, on Sunday morning a jogger at the Allendale campus of Grand Valley State University ran past a body near the sports fields. There is almost no information available, but it was a female first year student from the Detroit area, a child of a single mother. Some students have begun a fundraising effort to help the mother pay for her daughter’s funeral. The police have stated her death is suspicious and nothing more. It is extremely upsetting and frightening for those students still on campus, although campus security has assured everyone that they are safe. One last story: while we were super consumed by the virus and Trump’s astounding behavior, this happened: NPR Russian government hackers are believed to be responsible for infiltrating computer systems at multiple U.S. agencies in recent months, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Treasury, according to government agencies and media reports. Russia has denied the accusations. The hack hinged on a vulnerability on a software monitoring product from SolarWinds, a company based in Austin, Texas. The company works widely with the federal government and hundreds of large U.S. companies. Many use SolarWinds' Orion software to monitor their computer networks. So far, the list of affected U.S. government entities includes the Commerce Department, Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service and the National Institutes of Health. I don’t know about you but I think that news is extremely alarming. I thought that having been warned about this possibility, these important government agencies would be well prepared for any hacking attempts. Do we have any �idea of what the hackers actually got into? And of course, Vladimir Putin has already denied Russian responsibility. Right. So Oliver. Yesterday he visited a shopping mall (remember shopping mall visits from the Before Times?) to see Santa. Now covid is fairly under control in Australia but this year, as a precaution, no one could sit on Santa’s knee. Isn’t that the most adorable photo? He’s wearing his Christmas onesie and Santa has given Oliver his bell to ring. Apparently Santa sang a number of songs to Oliver. And in keeping with that, yesterday when we were saying �goodbye on FaceTime with him, we had to sing him threee songs instead of the usual one. Of course, we didn’t mind and he loved it and joined in occasionally. After Ibiza we went to Palma de Mallorca. Palma is a resort city and capital of the Spanish island of Mallorca (Majorca), in the western Mediterranean. The massive Santa María cathedral, a Gothic landmark begun in the 13th century, overlooks the Bay of Palma. The adjacent Almudaina is a Moorish-style Arab fortress converted to a royal residence. West of the city, hilltop Bellver Castle is a medieval fortress with a distinctive circular shape. ― Google So I went on a city walking tour while Craig went on a hiking tour. Lets look at my walking tour first: �Those �are decorative ceramic tiles on this �building. �The streets in the old city were narrow and winding. On this particular street was where all the old wealthy noble families lived. They are still owned by those families descendants �today. Look at the carved detail under the corner of the �roof. An �extremely ancient olive tree in the main �square. �The cathedral. This is the door where only the royal family enter the cathedral for Sunday services. Behind me is one of the entrances to the Royal Palace. We stood with our back to the Palace wall to take photos. I literally couldn’t get it all in the shot. I had forgotten this original chocolate shop which had been in existence for centuries. Inside we drank hot chocolate and everyone but me ate the cakes they were famous for. No gluten free there. More Palma adventures tomorrow. This morning it is 9 days until Christmas Day. There are more Christmas lights and yard decorations than I have ever seen before. Whole streets are alight at night. There have been so many Christmas trees purchased that vendors have run out and are charging a lot more for a smaller tree. We are preparing to make our houses look as festive as possible. Craig and I and our friends are already planning our isolated festive meals as these details are more important than ever. �If you live here in the US, please, please, please stay home for Christmas. Don’t let the virus into your home and don’t accidentally take it to Grandma’s house either. windoworks | December 16, 2020 at 2:06 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/p5zWgP-1t7 Comment See all comments Like Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Stuff. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://pameladarling.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/day-280/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com � 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_2020-12-16_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-280 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 2020-12-16 Title A name given to the resource Day 280 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/16875defc7c691bdc52381f9e4ed02b3.pdf df2b8c8fc060affe8dec37ade5ed2d62 PDF Text Text Day 281 by windoworks Things aren’t going that well for Trump or many members of the Republican Party. Remember how I said yesterday: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Here’s a story which shows that scurrilous actions may (should) have consequences: Alternet Progressives are pushing for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to avoid seating any Republican House members who have publicly supported President Donald Trump's attempt to steal the election from Democratic President-Elect Joe Biden. That's because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment literally says that anyone who has tried to rebel against the Constitution after having pledged to protect it can't hold political office. This would include any GOP House members who signed onto an amicus brief supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bogus Supreme Court case seeking to toss hundreds of thousands of votes in four swing states, so that Trump can steal a democratically decided election. I, for one, would really like to see each and every one of them not seated. What a furor that would cause! Perhaps Nancy can just hold them all hostage to future proposed Democratic bills. That would work, wouldn’t it? And then this is a new, hot, and embarrassing topic: Washington Post Next-door neighbors of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., that he has called his Winter White House, have a message for the outgoing commander in chief: We don’t want you to be our neighbor. That message was formally conveyed Tuesday morning in a demand letter delivered to the town of Palm Beach and also addressed to the U.S. Secret Service asserting that Trump lost his legal right to live at Mara-Lago because of an agreement he signed in the early 1990s when he converted the storied estate from his private residence to a private club. The legal maneuver could, at long last, force Palm Beach to publicly address whether Trump can make Mar-a-Lago his legal residence and home, as he has been expected to do when he becomes an ex-president after the swearing-in of Joe Biden on Jan. 20. In the demand letter, obtained by The Washington Post, a lawyer for the Mar-a-Lago neighbors says the town should notify Trump that he cannot use Mar-a-Lago as his residence. Making that notification would “avoid an embarrassing situation” if the outgoing president moves to the club and later has to be ordered to leave, according to the letter sent on behalf of the neighbors, the DeMoss family, which runs an �international missionary foundation. The Mar-a-Lago neighbors would be okay with Trump’s finding a new place to bunk. Their letter, written by West Palm Beach attorney Reginald Stambaugh, includes a zinger that harks to the vibe of the oldmoney enclave on Florida’s east coast: “Palm Beach has many lovely estates for sale, and we are confident President Trump will find one which meets his needs.” Oh dear. I’m fairly sure that Manhattan in New York City doesn’t want him or his children living there either. As to the virus and Trump’s complicity in the lack of federal response, Ron Klain (incoming Chief of White House staff) was interviewed by The Atlantic. In late January, at a moment when most of us could not imagine that 2020 would soon come to resemble 1918, The Atlantic published an article by Ron Klain titled, “Coronavirus Is Coming—And Trump Isn’t Ready.” “One thing people forget is that after ‘birtherism’ blew up on Trump, he faded from view for a little while and only emerged back into our politics around Ebola,” Klain said. “He was the leading public voice attacking Obama’s Ebola response. His tweets—there are studies that show this—were a main cause of the fear that galvanized around Ebola. He tweeted that the efforts to fight Ebola in West Africa were a mistake, that bringing home the doctor who had contracted Ebola in West Africa was a mistake—he said he should be left to die. Trump was completely unhinged from science, and this had a significant impact on the public psyche. It gave me an early indication of how he would handle a pandemic.” During all this Trump allowed (and perhaps engineered) meddling at the CDC. This from Crooked Media: Two former Trump appointees at the CDC described how the White House slowly stifled the agency’s independent voice, redirected its budget, and took control over its work, with constant meddling in reports and guidance that contradicted President Trump or had unappealing economic implications. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the CDC, put it bluntly: “Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won.” So once again, here we are, and if you think the White House and the inmates have learned anything from their many superspreading events, think again. Crooked Media: • Meanwhile, in the Trump administration’s pursuit of internal herd immunity, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is now in quarantine following his exposure to a COVID-positive individual, the day after he hosted an indoor State Department holiday superspreader to which more than 900 guests were invited, but which fewer than 70 people attended. (In coronavirus’s defense, that RSVP ratio feels �like something that would happen to Pompeo in the best of times.) Pompeo has canceled his final holiday party, presumably out of concern that not enough people would show up to get infected. At some point you have to ask yourself - does anyone associated with Trump have any brains at all? And in another topic, NPR has concluded that an entire generation will disregard a collage degree eduction and go straight into paid employment instead. College enrollments for the fall are down by approximately 35% and this will mean huge cuts and drastic downsizing for most universities. This pandemic is rapidly changing our lives and pathways. One of the biggest change is the speed of vaccine development. Something that usually takes a minimum of 4 years to produce and test, has taken 9 months. As I write this we are in the first week and the first round of vaccinations across the US. Are here’s a little side note: although the vials say 5 doses, nurses are finding some vials contain 6 or 7 doses - an added bonus. I believe this vaccine research has evolved from CRISPR research. CRISPR (/ˈkrɪspər/) (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacteriophages that had previously infected the prokaryote. Wikipedia (Well I know you wondered, and perhaps like me, you aren’t entirely sure you understood that) Scientists are studying CRISPR for many conditions, including high cholesterol, HIV, and Huntington's disease. Researchers have also used CRISPR to cure muscular dystrophy in mice. Most likely, the first disease CRISPR helps cure will be caused by just one flaw in a single gene, like sickle cell disease.Oct 14, 2019 WebMD Since this was published I think I read recently that CRISPR has been used to cure sickle cell disease in 4 sufferers. The downside is that they had to undergo heavy doses of chemotherapy first to clear the body , and then CRISPR was used with great success. And so the future arrives, whether we are ready for it or not. Another life altering story I read recently was that we have seen the births of the last Down’s Syndrome children, due, I think, to advanced testing in early pregnancy. What does our future hold? I think about Oliver and his generation. He is already immersed in the world of high technology. At 16 months he understands that remote controls turn things on, that other family members he has met in person sometimes FaceTime him, so he understands that we are not little people who live inside the cellphone. He and his generation will always live with technology and use it to their advantage far better than I can. And speaking of Oliver, here he is: �Another cooking lesson at daycare. �I am running late this morning and I have an Evergreen gift swap outside my house for most of the day, so I will forgo the next installment of the Mediterranean adventure today. Remember: masking for a friend. � 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_2020-12-17_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-281 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 2020-12-17 Title A name given to the resource Day 281 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/90ffc31cea99a163d12a0f8feb0cd1c9.pdf 66c25bb51b084673c6d9b9890b739239 PDF Text Text Day 282. by windoworks You just can’t make these things up. Just when we felt a glimmer of hope with the Pfizer vaccine beginning distribution, for some highly suspicious reason, a number of states, Michigan included, will be receiving up to 40% less doses next week than expected. The federal government (who had no program developed for distribution) is blaming Pfizer. Pfizer, however, is having none of it and insisting they have produced the required number of doses and are now producing more vaccine. So why the sudden shortfall? No one knows and there is a lot of finger pointing going on and no one owning up. There are 33 days left until the inauguration of Joe Biden and this morning a news story surfaced that Trump may �refuse to leave the White House on January 20. Please, oh please can we see footage of him being forcibly removed by the National Guard and taken by a special bus to jail. You know, those buses with guards and bars on the windows, and felons shackled to the seats. I’d pay good money to see that. Crooked Media: The bad-if-unsurprising news is, the Trump administration appears to be either bungling or sabotaging the distribution process, and lying about it. Officials in multiple states were notified late on Wednesday that their second shipments of the Pfizer vaccine had been substantially reduced, after HHS Secretary Alex Azar told reporters that Pfizer was facing “manufacturing challenges.” On Thursday, Pfizer released a statement noting that the company had no issues, actually, but did have millions of doses sitting in warehouses and awaiting shipment instructions from the federal government. State officials are now frantically revising their distribution plans, while somewhere, Jared Kushner frowns at the UPS website and slowly types “vaxxine” into the search bar. Now I have also heard that diehard Trump believers are trying to start a national insurrection to overturn the election and keep Trump in power as a dictator. Apparently, even though coups are strictly illegal in our ‘democracy’, they’re willing to overturn the Constitution to keep him in place. You can’t make this stuff up. And while all this other crap is going on, this happened (and is HUGELY worrying): Crooked Media: Trump’s former DHS advisor Tom Bossert has published an op-ed on the staggering scale of the Russian hack that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has called a "grave threat," and which Trump still hasn’t acknowledged. And that was before we learned that the Energy Department, along with its subsidiary National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the country’s nuclear stockpile, have evidence that their networks were compromised in the hack, which on a gut level doesn’t feel like great news. But what about the virus, Pamela? I hear you say. Yesterday the positive cases total for the US reached 17.3M. Thats a staggeringly fast climb. And yesterday the US added 3,293 new deaths. The death total now stands at 311K. And meanwhile in California: Washington Post California — the country’s most populous and richest state — is the new epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus crisis, with unprecedented surges of seriously infected patients threatening to overwhelm hospitals and overflow morgues. �The state is reporting unnerving numbers: California has set nationwide records for new cases again and again in the past week — most recently on Thursday, when it posted more than 50,000 infections, over 100,000 in 48 hours. If California were a country, it would be among the world leaders in new coronavirus cases, ahead of India, Germany and Britain. And the state’s test positivity rate continues to climb, meaning the virus is spreading faster. The rate is now 11.5 percent, more than twice what experts considerhighrisk. The number of available beds in intensive care units is plummeting. In the San Joaquin Valley, hospitals ran out over the weekend, resorting to “surge capacity.” In Southern California, a region that includes Los Angeles and San Diego, ICU capacity fell to 0 percent Thursday. “I want to be very clear: Our hospitals are under siege, and our model shows no end in sight,” Christina Ghaly, director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services, said at a dire news briefing Wednesday. In Sydney Australia, complacency overrode caution. This morning they have 28 cases in less than 5 days and the numbers are appearing all over Sydney. Mask wearing when shopping has become necessary and that summer carefree window may have just closed in time for Christmas. Most states have shut their borders with New South Wales and may keep them closed until well after Christmas and New Year. There are long lines for testing and Sydneysiders are suddenly learning that you have to isolate until you get your test results. Here’s some holiday advice for us here in the US: The Atlantic At risk of adding to your rule fatigue (sorry!), we’ve compiled four December Don’ts to help keep you and your loved ones safe as you navigate these final weeks of the year. 1. Don’t underestimate this surge. Yesterday, coronavirus deaths were 24 percent higher than at the height of the spring outbreak. My colleagues at the COVID Tracking Project break down another record-setting week. 2. Don’t gather—wait until March. Hang on for three more months, Zeynep Tufekci proposes: “If your loved ones can stay healthy a few months longer, they might be much likelier to survive the disease—or to avoid contracting it entirely.” 3. Don’t self-isolate emotionally during end-of-year festivities. Our happiness columnist, Arthur C. Brooks, warns that “doing so is one of the classic maladaptive coping strategies people employ when they are unhappy.” Instead, he encourages people to leverage technology to keep in touch with loved ones. �4. Don’t skimp on holiday cheer. Amanda Mull, a staff writer who celebrates Christmas, bought her first tree this year. The purchase, she writes, triggered “the type of pure-hearted Christmas joy I had not experienced since childhood”. I’ve left this for last. Yesterday Miss Murphy Brown left us. She went to live in another house with parents, two teenagers and another 9 year old male doodle. Here’s some memories: �With her brothers and sisters. She was called the purple �one Sleeping �Snow dog �Faithful walking �companion. Last morning walk with Craig. �All ready to �go �Goodbye �Lots of cuddles in her new home And wearing her new Christmas sweater. Goodbye Miss Murphy. Have a wonderful life. And lastly, to cheer us all up - especially me (yes, I’m crying), here’s Oliver. �Water! �Stay safe, wear your mask and hug your dog for me. � 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_2020-12-18_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-282 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 2020-12-18 Title A name given to the resource Day 282 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/3c622e573f3caf77639364c878577060.pdf 665abd766a55f48359b4a3f6febd3470 PDF Text Text Day 283. Saturday December 19. 197 sleeps to go. by windoworks 32 days until Inauguration Day. From Crooked Media: Former national security advisor Michael Flynn has continued calling for Trump to institute martial law to remain in power, arguing that military coups are actually no big deal in a Thursday appearance on Newsmax. �Im not even going to grace that with a remark, but obviously he’s been imbibing something illegal over the past few months. Meanwhile, in the ‘rats deserting the sinking ship’ category here’s this from Washington Post: Vice President Pence has begun looking for a new home in the Washington suburbs, and he’s planning a valedictory foreign trip to begin the day Congress counts the electoral college votes. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has discussed opening a consulting firm with other White House aides and allies. Top economic adviser Larry Kudlow has told friends he is planning to return to broadcasting, and he has his next gigs lined up. As President Trump remains defiant, refusing to publicly acknowledge that he lost the Nov. 3 election, all signs around the White House point to a four-year whirlwind coming to an end. Aides are quietly lining up next jobs, friends are wrangling last-minute favors and Cabinet secretaries are giving exit interviews. A number of the campaign’s top officials — including campaign manager Bill Stepien — have all but disappeared from the orbit, aides say. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have purchased a $30 million property on a secluded island near Miami, according to the New York Post. But Trump is remaining firm while everyone except Michael Flynn, are adjusting to the new reality. From Washington Post: Those close to him paint a different picture. These days, Trump is spending most of his time in the residence, phoning allies, according to four people who have been in touch with him, and falsely tweeting that he won the election. He has called state lawmakers to encourage them to promote his claims, startling legislators unaccustomed to having the president of the United States on the other end of the line. After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) congratulated Biden on his win Tuesday, Trump called to say that the Senate should not declare Biden the president-elect because the election was illegitimate, officials familiar with the call said. Things are grim in the promised land and Republicans seem completely unable to see the reality and then address it in a compassionate way. I hope voters are taking copious notes so that when the 2022 midterm election rolls around, some of these complicit people lose their seats. Crooked Media: While Republicans waste time on attempted sabotage, millions of people are in for the bleakest Christmas since Melania was at the top of her decorating game. The Labor Department reported on Thursday that new unemployment claims rose to 885,000, up 23,000 from the previous week and the highest weekly total since September. Nearly 13 million Americans are behind on their rent or mortgage, according to the latest Census survey, and just under 27.4 million adults reported suffering from food scarcity. If Ron Johnson’s so concerned about our children’s future, wait ‘til he hears about their present. �And even though the White House has been oddly silent about the Russian hack, here is some disturbing news from Crooked Media: The extensive Russian hack of federal networks that the president has yet to acknowledge keeps getting more alarming. At least six government departments were breached in an operation that went undetected for eight months. DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that malware-infused software updates from SolarWinds may not have been hackers’ only access point to government networks, and restoring security to those networks may take months. It’s still unclear how many total agencies were affected or what data may have been stolen. Anyway, remember three decades ago, in 2018, when the Trump administration eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator role on the NSC, and then spent 2019 bullying a whole bunch of cybersecurity experts out of the government? Seems like that might be worth a second look. Once again: you can’t make this stuff up. I’m just going to post this next piece because at this point we all need a good laugh. Also from Crooked Media: The Space Force announced that its members will be called “Guardians,” and that this was the result of a year-long naming process, and that it is “a name chosen by space professionals, for space professionals,” and that Guardians will be hired based on resemblance to Chris Pratt, and only that last part is made up. Meanwhile, in a land far, far away - all right, Australia - the city of Sydney is experiencing a sudden increase in covid numbers in the northern beaches. The Premier has locked down all north shore areas from the Spit Bridge to Palm Beach. All 21 beaches are closed to the public and while you think that’s not a big deal, remember its high summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The other states - Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania have all closed their borders. Overnight the cluster rose to 43 cases and numbers may continue to rise. The lines for testing have been long and frustrating as people hope they can still travel to visit family for the holidays. This lockdown will be reviewed on Wednesday December 23. For my family, it means no gathering in Canberra for all the Sydneysiders. Our son who lives in Victoria is still waiting to see. He has to transit New South Wales to reach the ACT. Zoe and Oliver may join an Orphans Christmas in Sydney with friends close by, but everyone is a bit depressed. It appears the virus in the cluster is an American strain, however there doesn’t seem to be one person responsible and the focus is now on a South American aircrew who broke quarantine. Yesterday Governor Whitmer struggled to keep speaking at a press conference when she talked about a friend who had been extra compliant and careful and yet still contracted the virus and subsequently died while on a ventilator. Our governor keeps pleading for federal assistance and cooperation with the state legislature. (Again, take copious notes and remember those recalcitrant Republican politicians when the 2022 midterm rolls around). Then Dr Khaldun spoke and told us that in her capacity as a currently �working ER physician, she was vaccinated on Thursday. She explained that she had no side effects at this time, but that she had signed up to the vaccinated website with the CDC, which asks you to report daily on how you are feeling. She reminded us that side effects showed that the vaccine was doing its job of protecting us. And in other vaccine news concerning Moderna: Washington Post: A second coronavirus vaccine received emergency authorization Friday, an unprecedented scientific feat that gives the United States two powerful tools to fight a pandemic that emerged almost exactly a year ago, sparked by a few cases of mysterious pneumonia that exploded into the biggest global public health crisis in a century. And if Christmas (or the Holidays) seems bleak in a pandemic setting, here are 8 ideas for a holiday spent distantly from The Atlantic: 1. Stay in touch with loved ones. Even if you are not religious, the research shows that holiday happiness comes from being with people. Because in-person gatherings aren’t safe right now, find creative ways to use technology to stay in touch. 2. Make old-fashioned telephone calls. Reach out to friends and family to catch up. 3. Play a game. Ellen Cushing, our special-projects editor, shares her recommendation: The universe tends toward disorder, and recreational Zooms tend toward everyone talking over one another at once and somehow not communicating a single thing. Or, worse, sitting in stony silence, worried about talking over one another. Having suffered through both experiences, I’ve come to believe that the only solution to the large Zoom gathering is structured fun in the form of an easy-to-learn, easy-to-play game. I recommend Scattergories: It works for all ages, requires only a pencil and paper, and—this is important— produces the kinds of very heated low-stakes arguments family lore is built on (Alex, if you’re reading this, receipts absolutely do not count as “things you find on the beach”). 4. Enjoy some of the year’s best culture. It was the year of ambitious TV watching. The year of the quarantine reading project. And the year of the comfort show. 5. Read something great. 6. Turn to art for stress relief. Try to write a novel in three sentences. Or start a craft project using whatever’s lying around. 7. Journal about your experience. Do it for yourself, or for future generations. Diaries from the coronavirus era will help preserve details that may fade from public memory over time. �8. Make space for grief. The world is mourning the loss of so many people this year. After the death of a loved one, a season of indulgent celebration can feel perverse to the bereaved. Yesterday Oliver spent the day with his father and his father’s family. They showered him with early Christmas presents. ��So to resume the flashback: while I went on a walking tour of Palma old town, Craig went on hike in the Serra de Traumuntana, a mountain range running southwest–northeast which forms the northern backbone of the Spanish island of Mallorca. A centuries old olive tree in an ancient olive grove. �Chopin lived in the village by this church and he used to practice his music in the church itself. �The �altar The Grande Randonnee - the great walking routes across several countries in Europe �On the trail. �The mountains behind Craig. Still more Palma tomorrow. Yes, it is eerily quiet without Murphy, but we receive updates and photos and she is settling in very happily with her new family. Yesterday they bought the dogs matching collars - pink for Murphy and black for Cruz. Everyone is having a wonderful time and I can’t be sad about that. Stay safe, mask up and wash your hands! � 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_2020-12-19_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-283 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 2020-12-19 Title A name given to the resource Day 283 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/e0b3cd8bfce5cc12f7c49c122f241d67.pdf 20f78d55ba5438598d2d37dd65d6538e PDF Text Text Day 284 by windoworks What has Trump been up to? Apparently his clinical mental condition has him delving further into his alternate universe. From Axios: Senior Trump administration officials are increasingly alarmed that President Trump might unleash — and abuse — the power of government in an effort to overturn the clear result of the election. Why it matters: These officials tell me that Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power. A senior administration official said that when Trump is "retweeting threats of putting politicians in jail, and spends his time talking to conspiracy nuts who openly say declaring martial law is no big deal, it’s �impossible not to start getting anxious about how this ends. People who are concerned and nervous aren’t the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe," the official added. "These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history." At Friday's meeting, Trump discussed making Powell a special counsel for election fraud.The ideas included commandeering voting machines, with Powell as a special counsel to inspect the machines, according to a source familiar with the meeting. White House counsel Pat Cipollone and chief of staff Mark Meadows "pushed back strenuously and repeatedly against the ideas put forth by Sidney Powell,” the source said. He really is unbalanced. I keep wondering why no one is prepared to recognize his worsening level of crazy and remove him immediately from the White House. Why isn’t there a provision in the Constitution for this? Oh that’s right, there is: The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution says that if the President becomes unable to do his job, the Vice President becomes the President. This can happen for just a little while, if the President is just sick or disabled for a short time. It could also happen until the end of the President's term (his time in office), if the President died, resigned, or lost his or her job. What if Trump is venturing further down the rabbit hole and it resembles some type of coup? Here’s this from Washington Post, in November this year: While deeply corrosive to public trust in our political institutions, the steps Trump has taken to remain in power do not yet fit that definition. He has falsely disparaged the election as beset by fraud, and mounted legal challenges to contest the integrity of ballots in some states. Only one of his myriad court challenges has been successful and the other 50-odd failed. Not only did these challenges fail, the judges they came before disparaged the lawyers and cautioned them about disbarment. Mitch McConnell has recognized Joe Biden’s win and the transition of power is moving forward. Except in Trump’s mind. Like Giuliani, he seems to have descended into a delusional fugue state, railing at the world and making insane plans that he has no hope of putting in place. I saw a very funny video clip of him being wheeled out of the White House, sitting at his desk and still denying his election defeat as they shut the truck roller door on his protests. Trump has never admitted failure or defeat in his life. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to convince himself that failure was not an option for him. What we are witnessing now is the deluded railing of a man totally ill equipped to face failure. He was never able to take on the responsibilities of caring for a nation such as ours - diverse, opinionated, and wholly committed to their inalienable rights. His 4 years of mismanagement will take a long time to set to rights. �In other news: the Premier of New South Wales has shut down the Greater Sydney area as new clusters begin to show up across more and more neighborhoods. This means a much quieter holiday period for most people. The other states have taken swift action to close their borders and institute travel passes. A plane full of Sydneysiders landed yesterday in Adelaide, South Australia, and the passengers were given 2 options: return to Sydney on the next flight or quarantine for 14 days. A lot of very unhappy travelers but didn’t they see the way the wind was blowing? Because they THINK the current outbreak was caused by an American flight crew, there are calls by angry citizens for no international flights to land in Australia for the foreseeable future. I think thats harsh, as every international traveler gets of the plane into a bus and is driven to quarantine. Its not the passengers fault if the aircrew were not sequestered between flights. And can I just point out that the aircrew at fault were fromSouth America. Yesterday we drove past the Deltaplex near Grand Rapids. There were huge lines of cars and the National Guard directing traffic. We wondered if this was another busy testing center. The holiday season begins next week and hospitals are concerned that people will gather together without safety procedures. New York Times A season typically defined by joy is increasingly defined by grief. The pandemic continued its deadly ascent in America this week, shattering once-unthinkable numbers: a single-day caseload of more than 251,000 new coronavirus infections, 1 million new ones in just five days and more than 3,600 deaths in a single day. The national death toll soared past 300,000 this week. Holiday gatherings — and how much they can spread the virus — could be crucial in determining whether coronavirus cases surge even higher over the next month. Just look at Thanksgiving. On the other side of the Atlantic, the U.K. imposed a strict lockdown on London and most of England’s southeast, banning Christmas-season gatherings beyond individual households. The decision came after the government got new evidence of a fast-spreading variant of the virus, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson asserted was as much as 70 percent more transmissible than previous versions. Total infections around the world have now topped 76 million. In the: Is that Hope? Section, Moderna vaccine has been approved and will begin to be rolled out next week. April is when we might be vaccinated. Difficult days. But here is Oliver, come to cheer you (and me) up. �So that night in Palma we were treated to another Azamazing Evening. This time it was a performance by a choir in the main cathedral. �Walking into the �cathedral �The reception with champagne, pastries and a dancing demonstration �Still �dancing The children’s choir assembled �Our seats were luckily at the back near the main entrance. It was unbearably �hot So there you have it. 4 days until Christmas. It’ll be just the two of us this year. Wherever in the world you are - stay safe. � 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_2020-12-20_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-284 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 2020-12-20 Title A name given to the resource Day 284 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/e6a111cff2b325b705eb0ac697b5f167.pdf 88ce19d3302f61db9e6ed4e456b87d16 PDF Text Text Day 285 by windoworks New York Times In Europe, several big countries have gone through cycles of having more and less success controlling this virus: Cases rise, and countries respond with new restrictions that bring down caseloads — until they lift the restrictions, become careless and then watch cases rise again. That has happened lately in Britain, Germany and elsewhere, and they have responded by announcing new restrictions. The U.S. went through similar cycles in the spring and the summer. But since September, this country has failed to make another concerted effort to reduce infections. It’s worth emphasizing that the current U.S. problems were not inevitable. Just look at the lines in the chart below for Mexico and especially Canada, which has to cope with even colder weather. The US cases have reached 17.9M, so tomorrow we will be at 18M cases. The deaths have reached 318K and although we may have peaked in cases, deaths will continue to rise through January. This next piece is written by a nurse. Its depressing and confronting but its worth reading. �•Time• the sedative was given •Time• the paralytic was given •Time• the patient was intubated •Time• their central line was placed •Time• their arterial line was placed •Time• their Vas Cath was placed •Time• CRRT initiated •Time• the patient was proned •Time• the ABG was drawn •Time• the family was notified •Time• the zoom meeting was set for •Time• the family said their goodbyes •Time• of death That was someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, friend, spouse. That was their •time• to go. And I feel confident in saying the virus made it too soon. I’ve stood outside a patient room with clasped hands, giving a thumbs up to a patient through a window as they were being extubated. Moments before: “Stay calm. The respiratory therapist is going to take this breathing tube out, okay? I need you to nod your head so I know you understand me. I know, don’t try to talk. You’re doing great.” I've taught patients to call when they were ready to be intubated. Days of being on the BiPAP on 100% oxygen can only be effective for so long. They get tired. “I can’t breathe.” “Okay, let me call the doctor and get everything ready.” “Tell my kids I love them.” “Tell them yourself we are calling them before this happens. “Please make sure I come off the ventilator.” “Listen to me, you fight like heck, okay?” “How am I supposed to fight when I’ll be asleep?” “You just have to go into this knowing you want to fight. You will never be alone. We will fight this with you.” To Nurses, Doctors, Nurse Practitioners, Respiratory Therapists, Pharmacists, CNAs, PCTs, Phlebotomists, Rad and CT techs, and anyone else I missed: How many times do we go home holding on to any bit of hope that what we are doing is making a difference for these patients?We’ll spend 14 hours with hypoxia and hypotension, go home, and come back only to find out the patient didn’t make it. All those times we felt like we weren’t doing anything for these patients - for some, you were the last person they talked to. The last hand they held. •Time• 1118 That’s the •time• I received the Covid-19 vaccine today. Jenifer, RN Stormont Vail Health �This morning all the news feeds are of the new virus strain which has appeared in Britain. Washington Post A wave of European countries — and some beyond the continent, including Canada — are restricting travel from the United Kingdom amid mounting fears about an infectious new strain of the novel coronavirus first detected in England. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland were among those that announced bans on Sunday, with others expected to follow. British officials have reported that a mutation of the virus appears to speed its transmission, and they have imposed severe restrictions on 18 million people in London and across southern England.British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBCSunday that “the new variant is out of control.” The new strain has now also been found in Australia, Denmark and the Netherlands. The European Union has scheduled a crisis meeting for Monday morning to discuss the mutation.Germany will ban all air traffic from Britain on Sunday at midnight and review the ban on Dec. 31. Irish Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said Ireland will impose 48-hour restrictions on flights and ferries from Britain starting at midnight and review the regulations Tuesday. France’s 48-hour travel ban, which was scheduled to start at the stroke of midnight Sunday, included nearly all shipments of freight as well — a stricter measure than was imposed during the first wave of travel restrictions in the spring and one that was sure to cause chaos in Britain as trucks destined for France get stuck on roads. The Netherlands was among the first to ban flights from Britain starting Sunday until at least the end of the year. Dutch health officials raised the alarm after they detected a coronavirus case with the same British strand. Belgium on Sunday also ordered a 24-hour ban on flights and trains to and from the U.K., beginning at midnight. In the Good News section - the Moderna vaccine was approved and vaccinations will begin today. In the true fashion of the US, arguments have already begun about who gets vaccinated next. Could we just start vaccinating everyone as fast as possible - please? I believe that the Astra-Zeneca vaccine trial is slowly nearing completion after some data problems. In Sydney Australia there were 15 new cases recorded overnight but I think, through an abundance of caution, the restrictions will stay in place. For most of our Australian family members it will be a quieter Christmas at home alone. Hopefully, by next Christmas, this will be just a memory. �Against all odds, Trump keeps having more meetings with seriously unbalanced individuals to discuss how they can overturn the election in the 6 swing states and have a do over which will result in Trump’s reelection. Now what makes these deluded individuals believe that if they ran the election again in the 6 states (Michigan included) the result would be any different? In truth, most people who voted, and many more who didn’t, would turn out to vote, probably in even bigger numbers for Biden, just because we would all be so pissed off at Trump’s inability to accept defeat. And just in case you were worried about a coup: Washington Post Efforts to persuade Trump to do a valedictory tour for some of his accomplishments, or focus on the coronavirus vaccine, have been futile, said two advisers. Advisers say they hope Trump going to Mar-aLago this week will calm his anger about the election, but Trump has shown no signs of pulling back. Public officials and military leaders have refused to be drawn into Trump’s post-election maneuvering. On Friday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Gen. James C. McConville, the Army’s top officer, released a joint statement that said: “There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.” Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stressed that the U.S. military �will follow U.S. law, without directly criticizing the president or his most partisan supporters. “We are unique among militaries,” Milley said in a Nov. 12 speech at the new National Museum of the United States Army. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or a religion. We take an oath to the Constitution.” On reflection, it is awful to see the President of the United States descend into such madness and unreality. Americans have traditionally looked up to their president and expected them to at least set a reasonable example for the population to follow. Some presidents have been deserving leaders and some have not, but never, ever, has there been a president as heinous as Donald Trump. He has promoted the baser instincts of a portion of the population and made that the face that America shows to the world. He has publicly ridiculed some leaders (he told Angela Merkel she was a stupid woman which Germany was most unhappy about) while saying of the seriously deluded leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un - we fell in love. Russian operatives engineered the biggest and most serious hack of state departments over 8 months this year, and Trump’s response was: it was probably China. As Craig said: is he a real life Manchurian Candidate? Trump’s actions regarding Russia do make me wonder. It is 3 days until Christmas. Like Thanksgiving, we will have a quiet day with a lovely meal in the middle of the day. We have lights, decorations and a small metal tree. We will toast friends and family, near and far, and hope for better days ahead. Oliver. Boys and their bikes. ��And trucks. �That’s it for today. See you tomorrow, of course. � 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_2020-12-21_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-285 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 2020-12-21 Title A name given to the resource Day 285 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/2f87a8f2a24f5564e427f69140868ae1.pdf 0ecc8bff2c9618c55e9d9a55947c1a07 PDF Text Text Day 286 by windoworks Yesterday the total cases for the US rose to 18.1M and the death total rose to 320K. Some states are doing better than others, and the states with no health guidance are doing the worst. Its 2 days until Christmas Day. This year the children, Craig and I had planned to spend Christmas and New Year in the South Island of New Zealand. That was the destination we all finally agreed on, after some lengthy discussion. We began thinking about this after Zoe had to cancel her plans to bring herself and Oliver to visit us here in the States, because of the virus. At that point in time we thought the virus �would be over or under control by December, surely. Some members of the family went ahead and purchased flights and made hotel bookings. As I look back, there were moments that still make me sad. The first was when I realized that my trip to Australia in April was not going to happen. We all cried when I told Zoe. This meant that she and Oliver couldn’t fly back here with me either. So we all made the Christmas plans. I remember how the virus seemed to dig itself in and stay. With the club I belong to, we discussed plans for the summer and then we let those plans go. Next we discussed plans to get together again in September (surely it would be over by September!) and then those plans fell by the wayside. In the meantime, the virus eased in most parts of Australia but our son Asher was locked down for 130+ days while the cases raged in Melbourne. In New Zealand they were locked down until the Prime Minister decided it was safe to ease the restrictions. (As I write this, this morning, in early next year, New Zealand plans to vaccinate every citizen of New Zealand - absolutely free of charge). Right now, the greater Sydney area is partially locked down while the Northern Beaches outbreak seems to be coming under control. The other states have closed their borders over the Christmas break. In Britain they seem to have lost control of the virus, plus they have noticed a more contagious mutation is spreading fast across the country. My niece in Cornwall is allowed gathering of 6 which is fortunate as there are 6 altogether in her partners family as they gather for Christmas dinner. And now we wonder how much longer this virus will persist. Although vaccinations have begun, you need 2 shots, 3-4 weeks apart for a 94% protection, and you still have to wear face masks and practice hand washing and distancing because as a vaccinated person you might still be shedding the virus. In order for precautions to be eased each country needs a significant number of its citizens to be vaccinated. Scientists cannot agree on what the percentage must be. So now, as we begin to sort through our belongings and decide what to take and what to sell or give away, we are not sure what the status of the virus and this country will be by June next year. Will we be vaccinated? Will we have to quarantine in Sydney? No one can answer these questions, never mind how do we show our house safely? �Cars are lined up at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for coronavirus testing on November 30, 2020. Nearly 2 million people are currently getting tested a day in the U.S. In California they added 43,408 new cases yesterday which brings the total to 1.93M cases and their total deaths stand at 22,908. From the New York Times: LOS ANGELES — As California’s new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to soar, the nation’s most populous state has emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic heading into a dangerous holiday week. With just 2.5 percent of the state’s overall intensive care capacity available, officials have been rushing to get more so-called field hospitals up and running. And discussions are underway about how to implement the state’s plans to ration care. And this reminder: CNN Despite widespread pleas from doctors, many Americans are traveling this Christmas week instead of hunkering down and protecting their loved ones from possible coronavirus infection. More than 2 million travelers were screened at US airports between Friday and Saturday, the Transportation Security Administration said. And health experts fear more holiday travel will further spread the virus, which has already infected more than 18.1 million people and killed more than 320,000 in the US. So here we are. Just the two of us. So far this has been a year of small pleasures. A walk, a drive in the countryside, a phone conversation with friends, a daily FaceTime with Zoe and Oliver (how he has �changed and grown up in the last 9 months), a gripping series to watch on TV and every day, the decision of what to cook for dinner that night. I have watched as stores and businesses around us have had to adapt or go out of business, and those that have adapted and kept going have impressed me with their inventiveness and pluck. There are glass enclosures and plastic igloos beside every eatery, and people are dining out under these new conditions. We look at them admiringly but still find the thought of joining them very uncomfortable. What about Trump I hear you ask. Here’s a succinct summary of his presidency: Washington Post The U.S. coronavirus toll stands at more than 318,000 deaths and over 18 million documented infections. President Trump's “skepticism of science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking, allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those around him helped bring us to this dark point. And of course he is still talking about overturning the election, and some Republicans are intending to cause chaos on January 6 when the congress traditionally approves the incoming president. Will this never be over? Oliver painting. ��Ciutadella de Menorca is a port city on the west coast of Menorca (Minorca), one of the Spanish Balearic Islands. It’s known for its old quarter and medieval streets. The main square, Plaça des Born, is home to the Gothic-style City Hall and the 19th century palaces of Salort and Torre-Saura. The 14th-century Santa Maria of Ciutadella Cathedral features a huge marble altar and the baroque-style Chapel of Souls. ― Google Craig’s onshore expedition was a hike to two ancient sites: one where Stone Age people had hollowed out dwellings and sacred spaces in sandstone rock and the second was a sacred site of the Tlalotic People, the original inhabitants of the Balaeric Islands. Inside a cave �A supportive column in a cave �Walking to the sacred �site The wall is still standing �The Tlalotic used slingshots for defense and hunting �. �A close up of the plaited sling So there you have it. Mask up (over your nose as well as your mouth) for a friend. � 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_2020-12-22_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-286 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 2020-12-22 Title A name given to the resource Day 286 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/195887227a4930085929e189cca65bbc.pdf 2f08104b6402c8595b6a010a74fdb26c PDF Text Text Day 287. by windoworks Washington Post Biden’s incoming administration has long described a “perfect storm” of four crises facing the country — the pandemic, economic distress, climate change and racial justice. It suddenly has another to add: a historic cyber intrusion into government networks that likely began months ago and could reverberate for months to come. The organized attack has affected numerous federal agencies, American companies and institutions, with national security officials working around-the-clock to assess the scope and seriousness of the breach. There are 28 days until Inauguration Day and I sometimes wonder if we’re all going to make it. Here’s a heavily edited opinion piece from Facebook by Heather Cox Richardson on Monday: In the past two days, stories in major papers have focused on the president’s deteriorating mental state.“His fragile ego has never been tested to this extent,” Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen told Kruse. “While he’s creating a false pretense of strength and fortitude, internally he is angry, depressed and manic. As each day ends, Trump knows he’s one day closer to legal and financial troubles. Accordingly, we will all see his behavior deteriorate until it progresses into a full mental breakdown.” CNN reported that senior White House officials are worried about what Trump might do in the next month as he spends more and more time with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who is under active investigation by federal prosecutors; conspiracy lawyer Sidney Powell; disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Steve Bannon, who has recently been indicted for fraud; Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser; and now Patrick Byrne, the founder of the Overstock retail website. Trump is turning to this group of misfits rather than advisers like his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, or White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The new advisers are encouraging him to declare martial law or to seize state voting machines to examine them for fraud or to appoint a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Trump has floated the idea of naming Powell as a special counsel inside the White House Counsel’s office to investigate the election. Meadows and Cipollone argue, correctly, that this is crazy. As he descends into the fever swamps, Trump has largely given up any pretense of governing. His public schedule remains empty, and his private meetings appear to focus on how he can stay in office. Today we learned that Russian hackers broke into the email system used by the leadership of the Treasury Department, but the cyberattack from Russia has gone unaddressed except to the extent the president tried to blame the attack on China (although he has made no move to retaliate against China for the attack). He has made little attempt to shepherd any sort of an economic relief bill through Congress. And, �most crucially, he is silent about the epidemic that is killing us. As of this evening, more than 18 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 319,000 have died. It gets harder and harder to visualize the fantastic numbers of positive cases and rising death toll here in the US. This morning the case numbers reached 18.3M and are continuing to rise. The deaths are at 323K and also steadily rising. Washington Post At least 18,268 people in the United States died of covid-19 in the week ending Sunday, and 17,291 the week before that, and 15,215 the week before that, and more than 323,000 since the pandemic began, and more than 1.7 million worldwide in the same period. And if those numbers make your eyes glaze over before they make you weep, there's a reason. “Something happens in the brain when fatalities reach such high numbers,” our Health desk wrote, after speaking to psychologists about this numbness to death. “The casualties become like a mountain of corpses that has grown so large it becomes difficult to focus on the individual bodies.” You know I’m always trying to find ways to put the numbers into perspective for you, so, 323K is just under half the population of Kent County or also, just under half the population of Detroit. Imagine if half of the people living in Detroit had died. Now to visualize the positive case count for today in the US: New York City has approximately 8.3M people so 18.3M represents more than twice the population of New York City. But as the article says - these are not just numbers, they are people. People struggling to breathe, people in hospital beds alone, and people dying, more often alone. These daily counts are grim but we have grown inured to them. Yesterday Dr Fauci was vaccinated with the Moderna Vaccine. I looked up the vaccination schedule on the Kent County Health Department site and Craig and I, in the 65+ category seem to be at 1C in the schedule, after every medical worker and essential workers. We will wait and see. This morning there is news that the Trump administration is working with Pfizer to produce 100M more doses. At the same time, Trump is refusing to sign the relief package presented to him by Congress. He won’t sign it until it offers every American a payment of $2000. Or $4000 - whichever sounds better. And in another side story, Dominion and Smartmatic voting machine manufacturers are threatening to sue a trio of conservative networks for promoting baseless conspiracy theories about both companies. Conservative networks are scrambling to walk back their fraud claims. Oh and Bill Barr, the US Attorney-General, who leaves office today, said again that there had been no evidence of widespread fraud at all in the election. So here we are. At least 2M people traveled by air on Friday and Saturday, after most state governors had begged their citizens to stay home for the holidays. Who knows how many more people have flown interstate since Saturday and who knows what effect this will have on the case numbers and the deaths? �In the ‘what did you do during the pandemic?’ story, Craig has repainted 3 rooms in the house (there is not one room that is still the original color); repainted the outside of the house and is now packing moving boxes. So far we have 10 boxes packed and taped shut, each with a number on the side. That number corresponds to a manifest which Craig updates every evening. He has taken 20 shopping bags of books to a local secondhand book shop and has another 10 bags to deliver today. On Sunday we began the clearing out of his office at GVSU. In 2 hours we managed to take everything down off the walls and clear out 3 large drawers and 2 smaller ones. There are still 4 long shelves stuffed full of books and 3 large drawers to go. Next Sunday and perhaps another day after that? At home we have a number of large empty bookcases lurking in unexpected places, and our neighbor TJ says looking through our windows from his house, our house looks emptier by the day. On Sunday we took most of the items out of both the front and back gardens and off the walls of the back porch. Today Craig will repair any nail or screw holes left outside and inside the house. I keep thinking about items such as: what will I do with the herb and spice drawer contents or the teabag drawer? Our yard sale in the spring will be huge. Oliver, who is always entertaining. �These books have a lot of words but not many animal pictures - but Grandad would be �proud. After Craig did his hiking expedition, he came back to the ship and met me for lunch. Then we both walked into Mahon. ��The main �square ��On to Corsica tomorrow. Yesterday we drove to Whitehall along the foreshore north of Muskegon. We stopped at Duck Lake to eat our lunch. And then we drove to Fruitland Township �White Lake river channel into Lake Michigan �The White River Lighthouse. �It was nice to explore somewhere new. How is Murphy, I hear you ask. Hopefully happy and enjoying her new family. We are gradually getting used to not having a dog in the house. One more day until Christmas Day. It might be a white one. As ever, stay safe and mask up for your friends and family. � 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_2020-12-23_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-287 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 2020-12-23 Title A name given to the resource Day 287 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/efda5a580c055e630b1fcb6f85f24810.pdf d6a4241905be2bec6a307308c8dc66c9 PDF Text Text Day 288. Christmas Eve by windoworks ��But I do appreciate the cards and treats we have received. Tonight at 6pm we are participating in the Front Porch Holiday Jingle. Those who own bells can ring them and those without, bang 2 pots together. Last night the wind woke me up. It blew in gusts around the house and made the wind chime on the front porch ring loudly. This morning it is freezing cold after an usually warm day yesterday. The temperature fell from 53F to 19F, but with the wind chill it feels like 9F (-12C). The snow is light and sparkling because its so cold. Its seems appropriate that our last Christmas in the US might be a white one. Every morning I wake up and wonder if the day will begin with good news or bad news. For the longest time even any good news has been tainted with bad. The Congress finally agreed on a defense bill but Trump is vetoing it partly because it supports the renaming of military bases from Confederate names. He is also arguing about the next stimulus bill, wanting to increase the payout to $2000 each and $4000 for a couple. At the same time he has gone on a pardon junket, I have lost count of all the infamous people he has pardoned so far. Here’s how things stand: NEWS & GUTS We’ve been inundated for weeks with reports of Donald Trump’s hurt feelings. Those inside the White House are afraid to be in the same room with the pouter-in-chief. He sulks and shouts because he lost. We get it. This is not a new phenomenon. It’s been his modus operandi for the last four years, and perhaps his whole life. Every move inside the executive branch is dictated by how Trump will react. This week CNN’s Jeremy Diamond quoted a senior Republican close to the President as saying, “We’re watching a petulant child not getting his way throw a tantrum.”That is certainly a good way to describe it, but it’s a quote from Juliette Kayyem, a national security analyst for CNN that really struck us. Wednesday night she said: “I’m so tired of talking about Trump’s feelings.” It’s so simple, yet so true. There are 328 million people in this country, but for the last four years, one man’s feelings matter more than anything or anyone else. His allies set out to make him happy at all costs and oftentimes to make sure they soothe his bruised ego. Many have chosen his feelings over the country. But some are finally jumping the ship. This week televangelist Pat Robertson split with Trump saying the president lives in “an alternate reality.” Longtime friend Gerald Rivera also decided he would no longer spare the president’s feelings and repeatedly declared the election “over.” He says his recent remarks have led Trump to stop talking to him. Over the next 28 days, we suspect Trump will stop talking to a lot more people. But, do we really care? Nope. I’m tired of Trump too. He has given up entirely on the virus, and all the while it continues to thrive in places where people have just given up on distancing or mask wearing. I understand. We all want our lives back, but the hard truth is, that life is forever changed and gone. We will get our lives back but we have to understand it will be a different life. Just as our lives before the �pandemic were the Before Times, after the pandemic will be the New Times. And new viruses will be with us forever. Remember yesterday we talked about the new mutation in Britain that was spreading faster and was more contagious? Well, here’s this to consider: Science Alert A second, possibly more infectious coronavirus variant originating from South Africa has been found in the UK, British health secretary Matt Hancock has announced.Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Hancock said that scientists had identified two cases of a new coronavirus variant which, he said, is even more transmissible than another variant which is currently spreading rapidly through England. Both cases of the second variant were close contacts of people who had recently returned from South Africa, he said. "This new variant is highly concerning because it is yet more transmissible and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant that has been discovered in the UK," Hancock added. It is typical for viruses to mutate, and variants are not necessarily more harmful or deadly. Experts previously told Insider that it's unlikely that the mutations in the first variant will stop vaccines from working against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Those in the UK who have visited the country in the past two weeks must quarantine for two weeks. The UK has also placed immediate restrictions on travel from South Africa. Hancock also said that millions more people in England would be placed under stricter lockdown measures from Boxing Day in light of the new variants. People across most of southeast England in Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and most of Hampshire will be placed under the strictest "Tier 4" restrictions from December 26. So COVID-19 is mutating, just as the first 2 vaccines are circulating here in the US. Britain has also begun vaccinating the elderly, essential workers and those at risk. Here, it seems some young and healthy politicians pushed their way to the front of the line - and yet they don’t seem to fit any of the first dose criteria. Marco Rubio, I see you! Okay, deep breath. This next piece is scary but I think you should know this. CNN Humanity faces an unknown number of new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, according to Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and has been on the frontline of the hunt for new pathogens ever since. "We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out," he told CNN. "And that's what constitutes a �threat for humanity." Speaking in the DRC's capital, Kinshasa, Muyembe warned of many more zoonotic diseases -- those that jump from animals to humans -- to come. Yellow fever, various forms of influenza, rabies, brucellosis and Lyme disease are among those that pass from animals to humans, often via a vector such as a rodent or an insect. They've caused epidemics and pandemics before. HIV emerged from a type of chimpanzee and mutated into a world-wide modern plague. SARS, MERS and the Covid-19 virus known as SARS-CoV-2 are all coronaviruses that jumped to humans from unknown "reservoirs" -- the term virologists use for virus' natural hosts -- in the animal kingdom. Covid-19 is thought to have originated in China, possibly in bats. Does Muyembe think future pandemics could be worse than Covid-19, more apocalyptic? "Yes, yes, I think so," he said. Experts say the rising number of emerging viruses is largely the result of ecological destruction and wildlife trade. As their natural habitats disappear, animals like rats, bats, and insects survive where larger animals get wiped out. They're able to live alongside human beings and are frequently suspected of being the vectors that can carry new diseases to humans. Dozens of new coronaviruses have been found in bats over recent years. No one knows just how dangerous they may be to humans. Once a new virus begins circulating among humans, the consequences of a brief encounter at the edge of a forest or at a wet market could be devastating. Covid-19 has shown that. Ebola has proved it. And in most of the scientific publications there is an assumption that there will be more contagions coming as humans continue to destroy wilderness habitats. It's not an "IF" it's a "WHEN". I believe that we have to understand this and think about how we live day to day, going forward. Will we consider masks and everyday accessory item in the future? Will we begin our day by taking our temperature? Will we ever just rinse our fingertips again, instead of washing our hands for 20 seconds? Will our children take this all in their stride and see it as normal? Some of the most compliant mask wearers I’ve seen have been small children. ��For all those people who still weren’t sure. Zoom and the like have already replaced phone calls, face to face meetings, book clubs, happy hours etc. People complain that they’re tired of Zoom and yet they log on anyway. Zoom etiquette is a thing. Online shopping is a new constant. The shelves in grocery stores are sometimes inexplicably empty. Who knew everyone ate gluten free food? One week there were no cans of chopped tomatoes, only cans of tomato purée. My essential shopper does one larger shop every 2 weeks and we have cut our food wastage down to almost zero. Who ever knew you could order loaves of fresh bread on the internet? Our local butcher makes amazing take home meals every week and posts a blackboard menu of items. Within a day, some are crossed off as sold out. Yesterday there was a line outside the Cheese Lady, waiting to buy cheese for the Holidays. Luckily we ordered ours earlier last week. Yesterday Craig found a box in the basement that he said was mine. In it was all kinds of memorabilia. Zoe and Asher, I have your baby tags from when you were born. I found letters from family members who have died and letters I had forgotten about from other family members. On a dull, grey day it was a lovely trip down memory lane. Allan, if you’re reading this I have your hair in an envelope from your first haircut - and I have the hair from my own first haircut. That was a thing, then. It is an interesting experience, sorting out 18+ years of things. Now, Oliver. �That �child has so many toy cars and trucks! Flashback: we sailed into Bonifacio on July 4. Bonifacio is a town on the southern tip of the French island of Corsica. It’s known for its lively marina and medieval clifftop citadel. The 13th-century Bastion de l’Etendard houses a small museum with exhibits on the town’s history. L’Escalier du Roi d’Aragon is 187 ancient steps carved into the cliff face. To the southeast, the uninhabited Lavezzi Islands, a nature reserve, have granite boulders and sandy beaches. ― Google �There was a small tram you could catch up to the citadel, but there was also the stairs cut �into the rock. Hundreds of steps. Hundreds. �Right next to the top of the stairs there was an air conditioned restaurant that I fell into, �offering stupendous food. This is my dessert - enough chocolate to get me up and out into the street again. �Very crowded �streets Looking down to the bay below. �The street names were in French and �Italian �Narrow lanes The view from the top of the cliffs Did we catch the little tram back to the dock? No of course not. Craig found a different set of stairs to climb down. That’s all I’m going to say. There are 7 days until the end of this year. �� 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_2020-12-24_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-288 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 2020-12-24 Title A name given to the resource Day 288 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/3b5e3bda5aaf94eec540b4e4ae0e7a0f.pdf b4ceaf5db75fc71209c9ecf14b5cba21 PDF Text Text Day 289. Christmas Day by windoworks I always think of this poem on Christmas Day. A.A.Milne was a favorite of mine and somehow this poem seems even more suitable today. King John's Christmas by A. A. Milne King John was not a good man— He had his little ways. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. And men who came across him, When walking in the town, Gave him a supercilious stare, Or passed with noses in the air— And bad King John stood dumbly there, Blushing beneath his crown. King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he. He stayed in every afternoon … But no one came to tea. And, round about December, The cards upon his shelf Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer, And fortune in the coming year, Were never from his near and dear, But only from himself. King John was not a good man, Yet had his hopes and fears. They'd given him no present now For years and years and years. But every year at Christmas, While minstrels stood about, Collecting tribute from the young For all the songs they might have sung, �He stole away upstairs and hung A hopeful stocking out. King John was not a good man, He lived his life aloof; Alone he thought a message out While climbing up the roof. He wrote it down and propped it Against the chimney stack: “TO ALL AND SUNDAY—NEAR AND FAR— F. CHRISTMAS IN PARTICULAR.” And signed it not “Johannes R.” But very humbly, “JACK.” “I want some crackers, And I want some candy; I think a box of chocolates Would come in handy; I don't mind oranges, I do like nuts! And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife That really cuts. And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!” King John was not a good man— He wrote this message out, And gat him to his room again, Descending by the spout. And all that night he lay there, A prey to hopes and fears. “I think that's him a-coming now,” (Anxiety bedewed his brow.) “He'll bring one present, anyhow— The first I've had for years.” “Forget about the crackers, And forget about the candy; I'm sure a box of chocolates �Would never come in handy; I don't like oranges, I don't want nuts, And I HAVE got a pocket-knife That almost cuts. But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!” King John was not a good man— Next morning when the sun Rose up to tell a waiting world That Christmas had begun, And people seized their stockings, And opened them with glee, And crackers, toys and games appeared, And lips with sticky sweets were smeared, King John said grimly: “As I feared, Nothing again for me!” “I did want crackers, And I did want candy; I know a box of chocolates Would come in handy; I do love oranges, I did want nuts. I haven't got a pocket-knife— Not one that cuts. And, oh! if Father Christmas had loved me at all, He would have brought a big, red india-rubber ball!” King John stood by the window, And frowned to see below The happy bands of boys and girls All playing in the snow. A while he stood there watching, And envying them all … When through the window big and red There hurtled by his royal head, �And bounced and fell upon the bed, An india-rubber ball! AND OH, FATHER CHRISTMAS, MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL FOR BRINGING HIM A BIG, RED, INDIA-RUBBER BALL! For some reason this makes me teary. Perhaps it is the memories of so many other Christmases than this one. When I was a child, my brother and sister and I would all climb into Mum and Dad’s bed early in the morning, and open our presents. As the youngest, I always got a lot! Breakfast was the normal one, but then my mother would begin the preparation for Christmas lunch. I don’t remember a turkey, but I remember stuffing and gravy and roast vegetables. Then Christmas Pudding, a round steamed fruit pudding with custard, ice cream, and brandy sauce. My mother put coins in the pudding and there was always a competition to see who could amass the most money. And every year, at the end of lunch, when we were all full to bursting, my father lit his only cigar of the year. At dinnertime, another Christmas tradition occurred. Cold ham and salads and then the bit I remember most fondly: Christmas evening desserts - Flummery, Spanish Cream, Jelly and (oh yes!) Trifle. I loved all of those and my mother made the best desserts. The day after Christmas Day (Boxing Day, so named for an old British tradition where the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families since they would have to serve their masters on Christmas Day. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food. Wikipedia) we ate the leftovers and enjoyed out presents. When I moved to Australia, met and married Craig, I somehow became the family member who made the Christmas cake. This is not a popular cake in the US, but everyone loves it in my wider family. You have to soak the mixed dried fruit in either brandy or whiskey and you set that aside - at least overnight. Then you mix the cake batter itself, usually in the biggest bowl you could find. Next you call all family members to come and stir the cake batter and make a wish. Don’t ask me - I just follow the rules. The cake is then baked and when ready, your pour more liquor over the piping hot cake. Once cooled, the cake is wrapped in layers of foil, tied up in layers of brown paper and stored in a tin which you tape shut, until the Christmas Week. Then the cake is unwrapped and almond fondant is covered over it, followed by Royal Icing (store bought and you roll it out to the desired thickness), and the cake is completely covered. Last, you decorate with toy sleighs, bells etc and the cake is displayed on a cake stand for all to admire. Traditionally, it is first eaten on Christmas Eve. �In our early married years, we traveled to my in-laws house in Canberra. One memorable year the house was so crowded, Craig and I slept on the dining room floor under the table! Christmas Eve my in-laws always held a big party with carol singing and platters of food all prepared by the women under the strict supervision of my mother-in-law. Then it was cleaning up and laying out the Santa gifts for the children and then the family gifts, all under the tree and stretching along the width of the living room window, before we fell into bed. Christmas morning began early with present opening, show and tell, and then breakfast: fruit and (I think) little frankfurters and toast to keep us going. My Australian family’s Christmas dinner was, for many years, shrimp cocktails to start, followed by turkey, hot ham and all the trimmings and then Christmas Pudding. For supper we ate toasted ham sandwiches, if we were not too full. As the years rolled by it seemed foolish to eat a heavy repast in such hot weather, and so the idea of a cold seafood Christmas Dinner evolved. �Here is my sister-in-law Bernie, with this years offering: salmon, shrimp avocado and �mango platter. Yum! For a lot of the 18 years we have lived here, we have had a hot Christmas Dinner during the day, with many friends and family joining us at different times. We always had a Christmas Eve potluck party for the block and we always ended up singing around the piano. Everyone left by 9 or so, and then Craig and I would drive over to East Grand Rapids to see the lights and luminaries. On Christmas morning, neighbors often brought over breakfast treats. Then after our Christmas meal, we always went next door for our neighbors ‘bring your leftover food’ Christmas night party. This year is different. Last night Craig stood on our front porch and played Jingle Bells on his flute for all the neighbors. Children rang bells and our neighbors came out on both sides and John sang the lyrics and danced on his porch. We all wished each other Merry Christmas and then we went inside to eat our Christmas Eve Cioppino (Italian seafood soup). ��Craig and I drove to East Grand Rapids to see the lights and the luminaries. This year, Covid has made everyone appreciate making an effort and the lights at houses went up straight after Thanksgiving. And there were miles and miles of luminaries, the most I’ve ever seen. ��And decorations too. ���Its hard to see, but these are Peanuts characters - all masked up. �When we returned we talked to the reduced Canberra crew. Earlier in the afternoon we talked to Zoe who was allowed (at the eleventh hour) to join her Aunt and Uncle for Christmas Day. ��This is our last Christmas Day in the US and memorably, it is a white one. As I write, the snow has begun falling again. Later today we will cook and eat our roast lamb dinner and finish with the last of the gluten free large fruit mince pie I made. We finished the delicious gluten free Christmas cake a week ago. It is a bittersweet day, isolated because of the threat of Covid, but doing our best to celebrate anyway. So from Craig and I, to all my readers: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! I think Oliver says it best of all: ��� 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_2020-12-25_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-289 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 2020-12-25 Title A name given to the resource Day 289 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/eb6f8b21489cdac9b10ff3e39a95aca0.pdf 2dac4eb632ed8523d0798a7223bd19d9 PDF Text Text Day 290. Saturday December 26. 190 sleeps to go. by windoworks It was an odd Christmas Day. It was very quiet outside. Even at 10am there was hardly any traffic on the roads. This year Craig and I forgo presents because we are packing up our lives and one more something to find a space for wasn’t needed. You know its cold when Craig dons his face mask. We ate our lunch at about 1:30pm. We had chosen to have lamb - a cause for laughter from our youngest lamb is commonplace in both Australia and New Zealand. It is not so common here. Working together in the kitchen was one of the small pleasures of the day and all the work was worth it when we sat down to eat. �And yes! I found a few Christmas crackers left over from other years. It snowed on and off all day and the temperature kept most people snugly inside. We FaceTimed with our Australian children and our relatives. The partial lockdown had precluded the usual big family gathering but everyone seemed cheered by their successful smaller events. As ever, Oliver made us laugh and here’s one photo that raised the hairs on the back of my neck: �Shortly after this was taken, he stood up on the tricycle seat and raised his hands in the air. �Hmmm. There are 5 days left in 2020. Will 2021 be significantly better? Here are 3 scenarios from the Daily Beast: The Dire Ideal In the best-case scenario, vaccine batches will continue to be distributed with relatively minor hurdles from here on out. Then, they will quickly be joined by still more vaccines—from the same companies or from others, like AstraZeneca—who can shore up efforts to get the shots to as many Americans as possible. In this scenario, researchers are also able to develop a vaccine that children under the age of 16 can take, which is currently not authorized for the Moderna or Pfizer drugs. In that case, the entire country might experience some measure of pandemic relief by as soon as the spring. Health-care workers would enjoy a respite from the startling physical and emotional toll of their jobs caring for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who became severely ill and died. There would be significantly fewer severe cases and deaths from COVID, and nowhere would that be clearer than in hospitals. In this scenario, the big questions about the vaccines will be answered, and the answers will be good ones. �Do the vaccines prevent transmission from healthy or moderately ill people to others? Yes. Doctors who catch mild or asymptomatic cases of the virus after getting vaccinated will not spread it to their families. Does immunity last at least one year? Potentially longer? Yes. In other words, we won’t need to handle booster shots—beyond the second initial dose—or scary viral mutations until researchers and frontline workers have had a little room to breathe. The Brutal Setback Scenario The worst-case scenario for 2021 begins with people still congregating and flouting public health guidelines in January, without having been vaccinated. It’s going to be a good long time in 2021 until we feel any cumulative effect on public health, because we’re still not changing our behavior. We still have to live with the coming hospitalizations and death. We’re going to be close to 500,000 deaths by March, from projections published last week by the University of Washington. This leading research group’s models, which have been used by the White House, have estimated that 562,000 Americans will have died from the virus by April 1, 2021. In the worst-case scenario, the big questions about the vaccines will be answered. Do the vaccines prevent transmission, in addition to severe infection? No. It turns out the vaccine prevents you from getting sick but it doesn’t prevent you from spreading it to someone who hasn’t had their shots yet. Does immunity last at least one year? Potentially longer? No. We might even be forced to re-evaluate our priority lists in order to provide booster shots to the already-vaccinated by the time the year is out. Then there’s vaccine hesitancy. As of this week, millions still say they won’t take the COVID-19 vaccine. Fauci told The Daily Beast earlier this month that his “primary biggest fear is that a substantial proportion of the people will be hesitant to get vaccinated.” In this scenario, vaccine skepticism, actual problems with the doses, unforeseen side effects, human error in the logistics of transporting the vaccine, or distribution issues—wasted doses from problems with Pfizer’s required ultra-cold storage, for example—hamper the effort to achieve anything close to herd immunity. Many people don’t get the vaccine until after next year. The Messy, Deadly Middle The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model projects that, with the vaccine rollout, about 34,500 lives will be saved by April 1, 2021. A more rapid rollout would save 55,400 more lives compared to a no-vaccine scenario. The model projects that 100.1 million people are expected to be vaccinated by April 1 in the U.S. With an even faster rollout, however unlikely, the number of vaccinated individuals could reach 194 million. The journey to a vaccinated United States will not be linear. Some counties, where the vast majority of the population is elderly, will be safer and free from community transmission sooner than others. That works in reverse as well. Some of the same communities that have been ravaged by this pandemic are also going to be left high and dry by the vaccine as health-care inequality still falls along race lines in the United States. When some pockets are left under-vaccinated, it means they are going to be vulnerable to outbreaks in the future. For public health authorities, it will be paramount to keep an eye on issues of �logistics and the distribution of two doses per vaccine to ensure that everyone who receives one dose receives two. So here we are. Cruise ships have canceled all sailings until at the soonest, March 2021 and I’ll be amazed if cruise can safely go ahead by then. Qantas, the main airline for Australia, doesn’t see international flights for Australians resuming until the end of 2021. For Craig, his final semester classes will all be online and at this point GVSU has proposed online teaching in the fall semester of 2021. Of course all universities and colleges face failing enrollments and may switch to more online classes, especially for much older students such as retirees and people retraining for the workforce. Will popular attractions such as Disneyland reopen? Will Las Vegas become the glitzy gambling destination again? Will business people fly as often to meetings and conferences or will Zoom and the like take this over? My son Asher has already switched to virtual store visits, instead of traveling there. Will we realize that with a little effort we can work practically anywhere in the world - have laptop can travel. It seems as though in the beginning these new ways of working were difficult and complex, but as time went by, working and functioning this way got easier and easier. In the future, although we may not have to work from home, having the option to do so may make our lives easier. This morning we are at 18.8M cases in the US. I wonder how much higher will the positive case count go? The Covid deaths in the US reached 330K yesterday - well on the way to 400K deaths some time in January. And yet people still don’t wear a mask at all, or if they do, they wear it on their chin or just covering their mouths. I have seen a large amount of instruction online, carefully explaining mask dos and don’ts and describing which masks are best and which ‘masks’ are no better than no mask at all. Although the CDC said for months that wearing a mask helps you to not spread the virus, they finally said that wearing a mask helps prevent you from being exposed too. �And bad breath? A thing of the past. Something caught in your teeth - who will ever know? I believe we won’t know what 2021 will bring until we are at least partway into it. In the meantime, keep up all the good work and perhaps it will be The Dire Ideal instead of The Brutal Setback Scenario. More travel flashbacks tomorrow. Its 5 days people. Lets try to have a very safe New Years Eve, shall we? � 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_2020-12-26_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-290 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 2020-12-26 Title A name given to the resource Day 290 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/55ef5c98703ad6530e31f53247426d0e.pdf 97c0d433b22e1e93d7d3300623c6f1d6 PDF Text Text Day 291 by windoworks Last night we watched the Queen’s Christmas message online. This was also a Christmas ritual in Australia. After 18 years and many Christmases spent in other countries as well as here, I had forgotten it. We were watching something on TV last night and then Craig left the room to make himself a cup of tea. As usual, I had a quick look online - and there it was. When he returned, we sat together and watched it. The Queen looked better, softer perhaps, and she spoke almost exclusively about the virus and its effect for 7 or so minutes. It was the most meaningful and touching speech I have ever heard her give. She is a devout Christian and she did include references to Jesus later in the speech. But first, she talked about the parable of the Good Samaritan, the stranger who helped the injured and robbed man, lying on the side of the road. Then she showed photos of “Good Samaritans” as well as photos of her standing masked, at the laying of the wreath of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. She talked about all the high holidays that different religions celebrate and then she talked specifically about Christmas and how very different it was this year. When she said “perhaps we just want a hug or a squeeze of the hand” instead of gifts, I cried. I cried for us, Craig and I, and all the other people across the world, who usually gather for Christmas, or Kwanzaa or Hanukkah or Omisoka (and forgive me if there are others I have left out) and couldn’t celebrate together this year. All those on their own and making the best of it. Here on Auburn block, most of us gathered with those in our family bubble - that is, those who live in the same house. It was the first Christmas in my memory, when it was just Craig and I. We had a nice, quiet day, just like Thanksgiving. I don’t think I would like to celebrate holidays like that again. In other news, there was an RV bomb in downtown Nashville. Luckily there weren’t lots of people killed, just some injured, although they did find a body, but they aren’t sure who it is. Trump went to Mar-ALago for Christmas and refused to sign the end of year Covid relief bill and millions on unemployment benefits suffered as the last bill lapsed on Saturday night. This also means a government shutdown will happen at 12.01am Tuesday, when the money runs out. He just couldn’t go quietly, could he? He had to drag the entire country down with him to assuage his feelings. Now, to the vaccines and life after them. �And here is the first installment of a glimpse of what aspects of life after the pandemic might look like, from the Atlantic: This first one resonated with me. Renovating my living space: It has come to my attention that my apartment sucks. Objectively, that might be too harsh an assessment, but it certainly feels true right now. Don’t get me wrong: It has big, sunny windows; appliances that are �functional, albeit old and ugly; and an amount of closet space that I would describe as “enough.” But the many things the apartment leaves to be desired—cheap fixtures, landlord-beige walls, and an ancient tile kitchen floor that never quite looks clean—have become unavoidably obvious to me as I’ve sat inside of it for the better part of this year. In May, when the novelty of quarantine baking began to wear off—one can make only so many galettes out of frozen fruit originally bought for smoothies—my idle hands turned to the problems around me. Armed with my pathetic beginner’s tool kit, I started small. I raised and releveled a shelf that had been crooked for, by my estimation, at least two years. I ordered frames for prints that had been stashed in my closet and charged my long-dead drill battery to hang them. I scrubbed my tiny kitchen with Ajax from top to bottom, and in the process realized that some of my stove’s components weren’t supposed to be the color they’d been since I moved in. I sharpened my chef’s knife. I flipped and rotated my couch cushions. I ordered and assembled a new shoe rack, even though my feet don’t go very far these days. I was stymied only by the popularity of my impulses. As I looked for cabinet paint, backsplash “tiles,” and even a new kitchen faucet, “out of stock” warnings abounded. Gathered around a firepit in a Brooklyn backyard, a friend of a friend complained that the city’s home-improvement stores appeared to be out of lumber, one of the many effects of skyrocketing demand atop shaky supply chains. Millions of Americans had simultaneously decided the same thing: If we’re going to be inside, it might as well be the inside we want. And this one is for all those working from home for the foreseeable future: To have a job without a workplace, you must build an office of the mind. Structure, routine, focus, socialization, networking, stress relief—their creation is almost entirely up to you, alone in a spare bedroom or on your couch, where your laptop might vie for attention at any given moment with your pets or kids. If the coffeepot runs dry, there is no one to blame but yourself. Now a once-in-a-century pandemic has resurrected the abandoned future. I’m back on my couch, along with millions of other Americans. And as soon as we were remanded to our homes in the spring, the predictions of a decade ago sprang back to life: If the COVID 19 experiment has proved anything, it’s that employees can be productive without being physically present, so why not jettison expensive corporate leases and free everyone from commutes? But the longer people spend editing spreadsheets or taking conference calls at the kitchen table, the more obvious it is that workers lose far more than physical space when they lose their office. Contrary to managerial paranoia, people generally want to be good at their job. To do that, many need the support, collaboration, and friendship of colleagues, which is more difficult to foster online. Outside of immediate family, people’s co-workers become their most consistent opportunity for social interaction. What happens when you lose that is a great concern. People felt excited for the first few weeks of remote work. Among other benefits, who doesn’t relish the chance to be out from under the literal watchful eye �of a supervisor? But now a fair number of the early enthusiasts are starting to go stir-crazy, with no relief on the horizon and, maybe worse, no one to commiserate with at the office microwave for the 90 seconds it takes to nuke last night’s spaghetti. Workplaces are complex social ecosystems just like all other places humans inhabit, and decentralizing them can obliterate the things that make them satisfying: knowing eye contact with a co-worker when a change you’ve been begging for is finally announced. A slightly-too-long lunch break with your desk neighbor because your boss is in meetings all day. Giving a presentation to your peers and watching them receive it well. Figuring out whom you can rely on, and whom you can’t. There’s so much unspoken that you absorb as an employee. You don’t get that right now with just a set of scripted meetings. At home, though, you probably get better coffee. More topics tomorrow. Here’s a photo for all those who asked and all those who wondered how Murphy was doing. We didn’t meet her new owners by choice. We know the general area where they live and we have seen other photos in which all of the family members are present. Her new family want us to be pleased with our decision. We hope that she is happy and will continue to be happy for the rest of her life. �Wearing her new pink, skull and crossbones collar and with her new Christmas ‘baby’. �Adventures with Oliver: �Look! Santa remembered what I asked �for! �Shouldn’t there be water in here? Our next stop was Portoferraio on the island of Elba. On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. He was banished but there was no instructions of how he was to live so he borrowed money from his sister (I think) and secured a house high in the hills where he lorded it over everyone else. Now after France, it was not luxurious but it was pretty nice. The coast of Tuscany from the ship, �Outside his house �His seal, of course �Painted Egyptian room �His bath �The �terrace The long, steep approach (it was hot and you had to walk up the uneven cobblestones). This was just the first stop on our tour. More tomorrow. It is yet another grey cold day. There are 4 days left of 2020. Keep safe. � 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_2020-12-27_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-291 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 2020-12-27 Title A name given to the resource Day 291 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/d2eea7fb783566c81f71035a05276165.pdf 6e6a7377b96a8cb6b48dc816d0e39100 PDF Text Text Day 292. 3 days of 2020 left. by windoworks It seems everyone is thinking 2020 has been such a dreadful year, but it will be much better once we get to 2021. And that is hope. We all have to have hope, otherwise none of us would get out of bed in the morning, ever. But let us be cautious about 2021. The virus is not finished with us yet and even if this virus is brought under control, the scientists tell us that there may be other viruses waiting for us, in the wings. This morning Craig and I talked about this, as the evidence points to the destruction of animals natural habitats as the driver behind these possible new pandemics. The more we mine and excavate and cut down and clear rainforest, the closer the animals live to us, seeking shelter and food. Then, as we are all living cheek by jowl with wildlife, it becomes so much easier for animal viruses to make the jump to humans. So, as many researchers, historians and scientists are telling us, we have to consider what to do about OUR environment. I see lots of words written and spoken about THE environment and that allows us to keep this scary idea at arms length. Its not personal when we use THE. But it is personal, it is our environment and WE are all responsible for its maintenance and health. Humans can be so careless with OUR planet - the only home we have. The following excerpt from Carl Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. As the spacecraft was departing our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how �frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. As I read these words again, it reduces me to tears. Sagan said it all. It is important to remember that we all live on this pale blue dot. This is all we have, right now. If we destroy the environment in search of more money and more ‘things’, we have nowhere else to go. Some years ago, I attended a talk on Big History (Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization and searches for universal patterns or trends. Wikipedia). One of the professors talked about our misconception of space travel, the belief that persists that if we trash this planet, we’ll go somewhere else. He described the time it would take to travel within our Solar System, and then described how long it would take (at Light Speed, not invented yet) to a nearby star system with an inhabitable planet similar to Earth. It would take generations, and we still don’t have the technology. And that’s not even beginning the discussion of who gets to go and who has to stay behind. So here we are, stuck on our planet, using up our environment as if we could just push the restart button and begin again with a new program. And before you lie on the floor and wail, remember that baby steps always take us where we want to go, in the end. Let us all try to live responsibly. That’s not too hard, I think. Here’s some more ways in which 2020 changed us, from The Atlantic: Over the past few months, the best place to trace America’s deepening pandemic anxieties has been the shelves of grocery and big-box stores. The first common household goods to disappear were disinfectants: hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, Lysol. Bottled water and toilet paper were snatched up once companies started advising workers to stay home. Next up were rice and dried pasta, followed by video-game consoles, microphones used to record podcasts, and athome pedicure supplies. Amid these disappearances, one of the most persistent has been that of an extremely common, shelf-stable product that has no obvious link to cleanliness or quarantine at all: flour. At first, �flour hung around on shelves while people bought up dried beans and canned tomatoes. Then, several weeks ago, while America watched as unsold vegetables were plowed back into the soil and fretted over the earliest outbreaks among midwestern meatpackers, one flour company quietly saw its sales skyrocket 2,000 percent. Flour was nowhere to be found in stores, and it soon disappeared from the internet. Quickly, evidence that a person had bought and used flour became proof of their irredeemable profligacy to people who love to get mad online, who grew frustrated by the baking projects of those who had found flour when they hadn’t. Home bakers were accused of flour privilege. Never had emotions run so high about milled wheat. Scooping up a bag of flour still often depends on dumb luck, even as packaged bread and other flour-based processed foods remain abundant. It doesn’t take much detective work to figure out where it’s all going: Facebook has been flooded with photos of homemade focaccias, pancakes, and banana breads. On Twitter, people are on their third or fourth wave of backlash to sourdough as a concept. Americans are baking a ton, and the nation’s flour supply has fallen victim to our newfound hobby. Now millions of people are hurtling backward into an existence where frequent breadmaking feels like an elemental part of American life. For flour manufacturers, the deluge has come in two separate waves. In mid-March, flour shelves thinned out, but mostly didn’t empty, as people were stocking up on all kinds of staples they’d need to stay home for a few weeks of regular cooking. The real flour rush began in late March, as it became clear that states’ initial stay-at-home orders would likely be extended. Marketwide demand shot up more than 160 percent, with no signs of abating. This sudden demand has thrown a wrench into the flour distribution process. In America’s industrialized-food supply chain, getting ingredients to the people who want them depends on far more than availability of the food itself. Supplies of wheat have actually remained abundant for flour brands, because less is being sent to restaurants and industrial bakeries. But brands are competing with one another to source the paper bags that consumer flour is packed in, as well as the trucks and drivers necessary to move it around the country. Bags of flour are big and bulky, and are allotted relatively little space on store shelves. And there’s the matter of making the flour— factories can ramp up their production only so much and still keep employees safe. Until March, advising people that bread-making is an essential life skill would have sounded to many like being told to learn how to churn their own butter or raise their own barn. If the coronavirus had hit in 1985, fewer people likely would have had to buy a new sack of flour and package of yeast to make sandwich bread, because those ingredients already would have been sitting in their pantry. It’s too early to know whether Americans forced to develop their cooking and baking skills will keep going once more restaurants reopen and returning to the grocery store for just one or two things feels less indulgent. But for the people who sell flour, one of the pandemic’s by-products might just be a solution to their biggest long-term problem: convincing people to give baking a shot. “The hardest thing to do is get people to make biscuits �once,” Minner, of Hometown Food, says. “It’s a skill that they maybe always have wanted to pick up but just didn’t have the time to do it, because they weren’t at home long enough.” If there’s one thing millions of Americans aren’t lacking right now, it’s time in their homes. Now if they could just get a bag of flour. And that paper bag shortage is reflected in many other items as well, one of which is the swabs and the needles etc required for vaccinations. We have the vaccine but sometimes struggle to find adequate supplies of the necessary paraphernalia in much the same way states have struggled to find supplies of PPE. And now, its Oliver time. ��Yesterday we went to Blodgett Hospital because I was suffering from a reoccurrence of a minor ailment which needed a small test. I lined up on the 6 feet apart spot on the floor and listened apprehensively while the young man in front of me described what sounded like Covid symptoms. Craig came in after parking the car, had his temperature taken and was allowed to stay with me. Then it was my turn and I was taken inside and put into a cubicle. The nurse asked me to take off my clothes and put on a gown (thank goodness for the heated blanket they provided). We sat there and listened to the patients around us. My complaint turned out to be exactly what I suspected, and so after an hour and a half, we went home again, armed with the appropriate antibiotics. Why did I choose the E.R.? Because (a) any Urgent Care facility would be filled to overflowing with people who might have Covid symptoms sitting in the waiting area for hours and (b) at the E.R. they put you straight into a room or cubicle and you never wait in the waiting area. Did I need to put on the gown? No, but rules are rules. And just so you know: yesterday the US reached 19.2M cases, so by my unconfirmed calculations, we should crest 20M cases by Friday. The deaths stand at 333K and rising. And, this morning New Zealand is considering stricter new border controls in ,light of the new Covid variant - an extra test on arrival and a requirement of arrivals from hot zone countries to remain in their quarantine room. Pre-flight testing requirements are being considered. Although we are not flying to New Zealand in early July, Australia often follows New Zealand’s lead. So we’ll see. At this point we imagine our flight will be a repatriation flights, that is. Australians returning home, as that is who is allowed into the country at this time. We are most fortunate to hold both American and Australian citizenships. We will return to the cruise flashback tomorrow. It may be time to consider coordinating masks which match your day’s outfit. Masks are with us for the foreseeable future. And I don’t really have to say this, do I? Over your mouth and nose, people! Both apertures breath out the virus as well as breathe it in. Cover them both up. Thats all for today. � 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_2020-12-28_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-292 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 2020-12-28 Title A name given to the resource Day 292 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/06c4eea1535b53b045cb80783263bf60.pdf ee1b1a52aa1a7d8c5b079d47022e9121 PDF Text Text Day 293 by windoworks After today there are 2 days left of 2020. All news venues have begun their recap of the year. Here’s one from the Washington Post. It is tongue in cheek and should make you laugh out loud because that’s what we need right now: laughter. We’re trying to think of something nice to say about 2020. Okay, here goes: Nobody got killed by the murder hornets. As far as we know. That’s pretty much it. In the past, writing these annual reviews, we have said harsh things about previous years. We owe those years an apology. Compared to 2020, all previous years, even the Disco Era, were the golden age of human existence. This was a year of nonstop awfulness, a year when we kept saying it couldn’t possibly get worse, and it always did. This was a year in which our only moments of genuine, unadulterated happiness were when we were able to buy toilet paper. January Which begins with all of Washington, as well as parts of Virginia and Maryland, gripped by the gripping historic drama of the impeachment of Donald Trump. Remember that? How gripped we were? Chinese news media report that a man in a city named “Wuhan” died of a mysterious virus. This is not considered a big deal in the United States. February Washington and its suburbs remain gripped by the U.S. Senate’s historic impeachment trial of President Trump, March/April (Mapril) And then, sprinkled in amid all the political coverage, we begin to see reports that this coronavirus thing might be worse than we have been led to believe, although at first the authorities still seem to be saying that it’s basically the flu and there is no reason to panic, but all of a sudden there seems to be no hand sanitizer for sale anywhere, which makes some sense although there is also no toilet paper, as if people are planning to be pooping for weeks on end (ha), and then we learn that Tom Hanks — Tom Hanks! — has the virus, and now they’re saying it’s a lot worse than the flu and we need to wash our hands and not touch our faces and maintain a social distance of six feet and use an abundance of caution to flatten the curve (whatever “the curve” is), but they’re also saying we don’t need face masks no scratch that now they’re saying we DO need face masks but nobody HAS any face masks but hey here’s a funny meme about toilet paper but ohmigod look at these statistical disease models WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE May And we are, as a nation, exhausted. We are literally sick and tired of the pandemic. Ha-ha! Seriously, we hate each other more than ever. We disagree about everything — when to reopen the economy, whether �to wear masks, whether to go to the beach, whether it’s okay to say “China” — everything. Each side believes that it is motivated purely by reason, facts and compassion, and that the other side is evil and stupid and sincerely wants people to die. Every issue is binary: My side good, other side bad. There is no nuance, no open-mindedness, no discussion. June The protest movement grows in size and passion with frankly not a whole lot of social distancing. In Washington, D.C., large crowds gather in front of the White House. President Trump, angered by reports that at one point he retreated to an underground bunker, states that in fact he was merely inspecting the bunker, this being a responsibility explicitly assigned to the president by the Constitution, right after where it says he’s in charge of foreign policy. To demonstrate that he is not the kind of leader who hides in bunkers, the president courageously goes outside (after the protesters have been cleared away) and personally walks several hundred feet to historic St. John’s Church, where he holds up a Bible. Or possibly it is a thesaurus. The important thing is that it is a serious-looking book and a strong visual, at a time when what this wounded and divided nation needs, more than ever, is strong visuals. July Covid-19 cases continue to rise sharply in some Southern states, accompanied by what the World Health Organization describes as an “alarming” spike in smugness in some Northern states, notably New York, where Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo unveils a poster, for sale at $11.50, commemorating, in a cartoony manner, New York’s pandemic experience. Really. It is as if the White Star Line sold whimsical souvenirs of the Titanic. August Because of the pandemic, both parties hold their conventions virtually, which means that instead of endless hours of repetitious blather, the TV broadcasts consist of endless hours of repetitious blather but without the entertaining visuals of delegates in stupid hats. The Democrats adopt a sweeping platform filled with bold policy initiatives that nobody will ever look at again. The Republican platform consists of, quote, “whatever was in the president’s most recent tweet.” September The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg triggers a classic display of Washington-style ethical consistency as both political parties, addressing the issue of when the vacancy should be filled, passionately embrace positions diametrically opposite the ones they passionately embraced in 2016. October. The White House announces that President Trump is infected with the coronavirus, as are the first lady, White House staffers and others who have been near the president at events where many people did not wear masks or observe social distancing. This seems to suggest, crazy as it sounds, that the virus — �who could possibly have known this? — is an infectious disease that you can catch from other people. The president begins a course of treatment at Walter Reed that includes an antibody cocktail, an antiviral drug, a steroid and — this really happened — a motorcade ride around the hospital. The important thing is that the president recovers quickly and announces that covid-19 is frankly no big deal for anybody who has a large team of doctors, 24/7 access to a world-class medical facility and a helicopter. Then, having learned an important lesson from his experience, the president resumes holding massive rallies where many people do not wear masks. November It is not until Saturday that the news media call the election for Biden. Trump claims that he won the election BY A LOT, but it is being stolen from him via a vast, sophisticated, malignant and purely hypothetical vote-fraud scheme. To combat this fraud, the president forms a crack legal team headed by former sane person Rudy “Rudy Three i’s” Giuliani, who presides over what future scholars will view as the single greatest event in the history of America, if not the world. This occurs when the president announces via tweet that his lawyers will hold a news conference at “Four Seasons, Philadelphia.” Everyone assumes he means the Four Seasons Hotel, but in fact — and here we have definitive proof that there is a God, and He or She has an excellent sense of humor — the event takes place in the parking lot of a company called Four Seasons Total Landscaping, which is across the street from a cremation center and down the block from Fantasy Island Adult Bookstore. December Long term, the economic outlook remains troubling, with the U.S. economy being kept afloat mainly by consumers making monthly payments to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, CBS All Access, HBO Now, Peacock, HBO Max, Discovery Plus, Starz, Chickadee, Eyeballz, Amazon Super Deluxe, HBO Medium Rare, Chickadee Plus, Disney Extra Special, Amazon Supreme Unleaded, HBO Gluten Free and a bewildering array of other streaming services that consumers rarely watch but keep paying for because they can’t figure out how to cancel their subscriptions. While the president continues to insist that he was reelected, members of his staff quietly prepare for the transition by updating their résumés and conducting a search for the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes, believed last seen in the back of a golf cart in Bedminster, N.J. There has been a surprising lack of memes on FaceBook. Instead it is all about charity and an overwhelming amount of breaking scientific news. This morning I read of a application/injection (?) for people exposed to the virus but not yet sick. In mind bogglingly detailed and scientific terms it describes how this would work. I’m sure there was something in there about mimicking the virus, but after the 4th paragraph, I gave up. But I think the 2 vaccines already in use, as well as the vaccines still in the trial phase, predicts an enormous change in medicine and science. Admittedly, these vaccine developments have had a huge �amount of funding poured into them, but shouldn’t we now pour money into the already here with us, climate crisis? Every country trying to address this and act responsibly have predicted any changes in making a difference will take years. Could I just respectfully point out that we don’t have years. We have to start immediately. Remember how I posted an article this week about coming pandemics such as this first one, being the direct result of environmental degradation? If we want to keep our pale blue dot habitable, we better start right now. I believe incoming President Biden has a significant environmental and climate crisis plan and he has nominated strong people to lead this effort. The changes in climate were subtle for a long time. 18 years ago, I remember being struck by the sound of geese honking as they flew overhead, returning from their winter southern migration. Recently, driving past small lakes outside Grand Rapids, I have seen large flocks of water birds, sitting on those lakes. The seasons are moving. It is almost 2021 and there has not been a significant snowfall yet. While this is of interest to me, across America this is of vital importance to farmers. It is too early yet to see the numbers after the Christmas traveling and gathering. Of course we still have New Year’s Eve to think about. But here’s a piece from someone who contracted Covid and dealt with it at home. HOW TO FIGHT COVID AT HOME No one ever talks about how to fight Covid at home. I came down with Covid in November. I went to the hospital, running a fever of 103, a rapid heart beat, and other common symptoms that come with Covid. While I was there they treated me for the high fever, dehydration and pneumonia. The doctor sent me home to fight Covid with two prescriptions - Azithromycin 250mg & Dexamethason 6mg. When the nurse came in to discharge me, I asked her, "What can I do to help fight this at home?" She said, “Sleep on your stomach at all times with Covid. If you can’t sleep on your stomach because of heath issues sleep on your side. Do not lay on your back no matter what because it smashes your lungs and that will allow fluid to set in. Set your clock every two hours while sleeping on your stomach, then get out of bed and walk for 15-30 min, no matter how tired or weak that you are. Also move your arms around frequently, it helps to open your lungs. Breathe in thru your nose, and out thru your mouth. This will help build up your lungs, plus help get rid of the Pneumonia or other fluid you may have. When sitting in a recliner, sit up straight - do not lay back in the recliner, again this will smash your lungs. While watching TV - get up and walk during every commercial. Eat at least 1 - 2 eggs a day, plus bananas, avocado and asparagus.These are good for Potassium. Drink Pedialyte, Gatorade Zero, Powerade Zero & Water with Electrolytes to prevent you from becoming dehydrated. Do not drink anything cold - have it at room temperature or warm it up. Water with lemon, and little honey, peppermint tea, apple cider are good suggestions for getting in fluids. No milk products, or pork. Vitamin’s D3, C, B, Zinc, Probiotic One-Day are good ideas. Tylenol for fever. Mucinex, or �Mucinex DM for drainage, plus helps the cough. Pepcid helps for cramps in your legs. One baby aspirin everyday can help prevent getting a blood clot, which can occur from low activity. Drink a smoothie of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, honey, tea and a spoon or two of peanut butter”. Oliver: �Didn’t I eat this yesterday for breakfast? And the day before, and the day before that? �Flashback: Portoferraio and Porto Azzurro. Porto Azurro �Looking up at a Medici fortress �Ancient Roman villa, right on the coast �Part of the ruined villa �Looking down at �Portoferrairo The harbor �Second White Night for us �And yes, I did have white clothes. That’s it for today. The sun is shining after many grey days although there is a winter storm warning for us beginning at 10pm tonight and promising ice and snow all night long. Hmmm. Its one thing to be shut in by a virulent virus, but its even worse to be shut in due to a storm. Of course its still 2020. That explains 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_2020-12-29_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-293 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 2020-12-29 Title A name given to the resource Day 293 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/11619cb3688b317a9a5a748dcdb2b147.pdf c8045210a0a47474864c042a8845e442 PDF Text Text Day 294 by windoworks I awoke this morning to the sound of snow blowers. It snowed almost all night long. Every year, when the first heavy snow falls, I remember how quiet the snow makes the world. And somehow the whiteness is bright. I like snow so much more than rain. Snow is easily shaken off your clothing whereas rain takes ages for y our wet clothes to dry out. At last! A meme. And so say we all - and yes, I was a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica (the new series) and I’m thinking of watching it again. Speaking of TV series, is anyone else watching the Sundance series: The Name of the Rose? Its really good but we can only manage one episode at a time. I was reading a friends TV list the other day and we have watched almost all of the shows he listed. This has been an ‘entertain me please’ year for TV in our house. This next piece was sent to me by my sister-in-law. Its really what I have been thinking recently. What do you think? �And here’s what Trump should have said in January this year, from a New York Times quiz: “After consulting with our top government health professionals, I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all Americans.” From the Atlantic and Ed Yong: 1. The vaccine rollout could be rocky. We are trying to plan for the most complex vaccination program in human history after a year of complete exhaustion, with a chronically underfunded infrastructure and personnel who are still responsible for measles and sexually transmitted diseases and making sure your water is clean. 2. The virus could change. What happens next with SARS-CoV-2 depends on how our immune systems react to the vaccines, and whether the virus evolves in response. Both factors are notoriously hard to predict, because the immune system (as immunologists like to remind people) is very complicated, and evolution (as biologists often note) is cleverer than you. 3. But expect some relief by the summer. Many of the 30 epidemiologists, physicians, immunologists, sociologists, and historians whom I interviewed for this piece are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. is headed for a better summer. But they emphasized that such a world, though plausible, is not inevitable. 4. Still, this outbreak will leave long-term scars. A pummeled health-care system will be reeling, shortstaffed, and facing new surges of people with long-haul symptoms or mental-health problems. Social gaps that were widened will be further torn apart. Grief will turn into trauma. And a nation that has begun to return to normal will have to decide whether to remember that normal led to this. And this next is also from The Atlantic and looks at restaurants in particular. Yesterday I read a very comprehensive article about all the really interesting and successful restaurants across the US in the major cities that have already reluctantly closed their doors. Often these were restaurants you had to book weeks �in advance to get a table. What’s interesting to me is that this was predicted earlier in the pandemic and so was the prediction that the big chains like MacDonalds would survive and thrive. This is evident almost every lunchtime in Grand Rapids. There are long lines of cars all ordering at the drive thru of fast food restaurants. I am encouraged by our local restaurants and speciality stores that have adapted quickly and offer curbside pickup. In my neighborhood, masking has been taken seriously in the last few months and people wait patiently outside cafes etc for their pick up order. I think that retail capacity will be reduced, relocated, and repurposed,” said Daniel O’Connor, a veteran retail adviser and visiting executive at the Harvard Business School. Reduced means that thousands of restaurants will go out of business. “Flat out, I’m telling you a lot of today’s restaurant locations are going to become gyms,” O’Connor said. Relocated means that many restaurants that hang on will recognize in the next few months that they can’t survive in expensive downtown areas. They’ll look to open new locations in the suburbs, or shift their business to a food truck. “Repurposed means the restaurant of 2010 isn’t going to be the restaurant of 2025,” O’Connor said. “The pandemic is going to accelerate the shift to contactless delivery of meals, groceries, and products of all kinds.” As more restaurants recognize that they cannot make rent by filling hygienically spaced seats, they will become, simply, for-profit kitchens—a place where food is prepared but less commonly eaten. And here’s the other development: a slew of cooking shows which show you how to make restaurant style meals - and we all have enough time on our hands now to do this. In our house we have become adept at repurposing food such as last nights dinner. Its amazing how creative and even frugal a pandemic makes you. Also, if Craig cannot find something in a store he visits, then I order it online. No more multiple visits to different grocery stores looking for gluten free pinko breadcrumbs (really, how many Americans are gluten free?), i just order it online and 2 days later, there it is on my doorstep. Is this responsible? Possibly not, but it is a pandemic. Also from The Atlantic, this is part of a longer piece about shopping. An awkward luxury service mere months ago, supermarket delivery has been forced into the mainstream so fast that stores and services are struggling to respond. Like Instacart, Amazon (which owns Whole Foods) can’t keep up with demand; according to one account, its grocery orders have risen 50-fold since the lockdowns began. The company is hiring 175,000 new delivery and operations personnel, but it has limited new grocery sign-ups until it can ramp up service. Some supermarket chains have already repurposed some of their interior space for online-grocery pickup, but many can’t keep up with the sudden demand, either. Walmart has extended store hours for pickup and delivery at some locations. Kroger closed at least one of its Ohio stores to the public entirely, reserving it for online-order fulfillment. I think these changes are here to stay in the US. Whether they exist or are used in other countries, I cannot say, but I believe this is part of the future, just as online learning is. �So here we are. Tomorrow is New Years Eve and Friday begins 2021. What have we learned from this year? For me: nothing is set in stone and learn to roll with the changes. Accept and adapt. These are both hard words and even harder ideas. For 294 days, I have lived one day after another in exactly the same way. Each day begins the same way and ends the same way. I have discovered the calming effect of jigsaw puzzles, addictive but trashy TV shows and endless books on my Kindle. I have read whole series by an author and I have watched complete seasons of TV shows. Most of all I have written this blog, day after day after day. It will never be a chore, it is engrossing and rewarding and most of all, fulfilling. It took a pandemic to show me I was a writer, and for that, I am grateful. Yesterday Oliver went to the beach. Last time Zoe took him to the beach he screamed in fear at the water. This time there is a video of him running down to the waters edge and waiting for the wave to come in over his feet. But that was would knock him over and Zoe grabs him just before he falls. He is saturated though. ��Flashback: our next port was Lucca - well we didn’t dock there, but Craig and I joined a tour that took us first to Lucca. I am extremely fond of Lucca as we stayed overnight inside the wall about 10 years ago. Lucca is a city on the Serchio river in Italy’s Tuscany region. It’s known for the well-preserved Renaissance walls encircling its historic city center and its cobblestone streets. Broad, tree-lined pathways along the tops of these massive 16th- and 17th-century ramparts are popular for strolling and cycling. Casa di Puccini, where the great opera composer was born, is now a house museum. ― Google �It was raining at �first �Our first stop was the St Martin Cathedral - which was under renovation on the exterior. �Gorgeous �ceiling �The organ loft �A version of the Last �Supper The view from the bell tower �Chiesa di San Michele in Foro. San Michele in Foro is a Roman Catholic basilica church in �Lucca, Tuscany, central Italy, built over the ancient Roman forum. Until 1370 it was the seat of the Consiglio Maggiore, the commune's most important assembly. It is dedicated to Archangel Michael. Wikipedia. No we didn’t go inside. More tomorrow. In the meantime, smile behind your mask and stay safe. It will be all right in the end, and if it is not all right, it is not the end. � 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_2020-12-30_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-294 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 2020-12-30 Title A name given to the resource Day 294 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/81b473cb27c4246b1eb45348f0a0c8c4.pdf de480d223cb413518dfb6dca2cb0f8c6 PDF Text Text Day 295. New Year’s Eve. by windoworks As I write this morning, it is almost 2 hours into 2021 in New Zealand and 6 minutes to midnight in Australia. 2021 is upon us. Many people have expressed the feeling that if we could just make it to 2021, everything would magically be better. As a world, we have imbued such hope for a better life in 2021, that we are bound to be disappointed. �The first two new variant cases of Covid have appeared in two different states here in the US. In one of the cases, the patient has not been in contact with anyone who has traveled internationally. So that’s a worry. And just to bring you up to speed: California has asked all nursing staff to work longer hours than allowed and some vials of the Pfizer vaccine had to be discarded because they thawed without being injected. Each state has had to organize how and when and who gets the vaccine as Trump has said its all up to the states now. And here’s the biggest problem: US hospitals are organized as ‘for profit’ businesses (I’ll let the sink in, shall I?), so the storing and then distribution of the vaccines turns them unwillingly, into non-profit entities. They are already struggling because their other services have been pushed back to allow the housing and nursing of seriously ill Covid patients. In California, where earlier this week it was reported that one person dies from Covid every 10 minutes, hospitals have suspended all elective surgery. It’s not that they don’t have the operating theaters and the surgeons - its that they don’t have the nursing staff or anesthesiologists available. Michigan is holding - the numbers have reduced slightly, but as Dr Khaldun says: we remain in a fragile position. Here are the US statistics for today, the last day of 2020. Yesterday 3,903 deaths were recorded bringing the total deaths to 341K. The positive case total reached 19.7M yesterday, by the end of the year tonight the US will be close to 20M cases. Australia’s population totals 25.5M - how long will it be before the US case total exceeds Australia’s population? cnn In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak urged residents to avoid high-risk activities to slow the spread of the virus in the state. "I know people want to celebrate the end of 2020, and I don't blame them. But if we don't start making smart choices at the start of 2021, we will look a lot and feel a lot more like 2020 than any of us want it to be," the governor said. Celebratory gatherings and travel could help drive another surge of infections -- followed by hospitalizations and deaths -- health officials have warned. But millions have opted to spend the holidays away from home. More than a million people passed through airport security checks Tuesday, for the fourth straight day after the Christmas holiday. And: Washington Post: Top federal infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci said Tuesday that the pandemic is “out of control in many respects,” in the United States right now, and predicted that January could be even worse than December. But Fauci also expressed hope that President-elect Joe Biden could make an impact by “showing leadership from the top.” �And here’s a really disturbing item that we should all take heed of (even if we want to close our eyes and hum loudly instead): Washington Post: In its last briefing of the year, the World Health Organization took a moment to warn that the coronavirus, despite all of the lives lost and all of the disruption, might not even be the pandemic that health experts have long feared, and that we should prepare for even deadlier outbreaks in the future. �WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan said Tuesday that while this pandemic has been severe, it “is not necessarily the big one.” The coronavirus pandemic, he said, should serve as a “wake-up call.” Trump has retreated to Mar-A-Lago (even though his neighbors objected) and is tweeting up a storm to his followers. He wants to overturn the election on January 6 when Congress ratifies the election results. Washington Post: Formal rallies are planned most of the day and will draw pro-Trump demonstrators to the Washington Monument, Freedom Plaza and the Capitol. But online forums and encrypted chat messages among far-right groups indicate a number of demonstrators might be planning more than chanting and waving signs. Threats of violence, ploys to smuggle guns into the District and calls to set up an “armed encampment” on the Mall have proliferated in online chats about the Jan. 6 day of protest. The Proud Boys, members of armed right-wing groups, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists have pledged to attend. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to issue calls to supporters to converge on D.C. “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!” he tweeted Wednesday. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! Now for something entirely different. NPR: With today's fragmented, social media-fueled pop culture environment, the consumer has never had more power. And all the biggest media companies are chasing viewer tastes more intensely than ever, focusing on their streaming platforms as consumers create an increasingly personalized, fractured media diet. Here's how all that adds up to the four biggest ways 2020 transformed media. 1. For broadcasters, the lockdowns in mid-March forced many shows to end their seasons early and kept networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, The CW and Fox from developing many new shows. The fall season, when broadcasters often debut their most-anticipated new series, was pushed back for months. And a few new shows which managed to debut in the fall, like Kim Cattrall's Filthy Rich and John Slattery's NEXTon Fox, are already canceled. 2. The problem was highlighted in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey, which found 61 percent of Americans overall trusted the presidential election result, but just 24 percent of Republicans did. We are learning this year how much of American democracy depends on the mutual acceptance of norms and basic facts. What we may learn next year, is what happens to democracy if that mutual acceptance drops even further. 3. This year, I saw three things happen in television that I never expected. The Bachelor chose its first Black man as a star. Cops and Live PD, two unscripted shows long criticized for stereotyping poor folks and people of color, were canceled. And CBS, a network long criticized for its lack of diversity, announced specific diversity goals for scripted and �unscripted series, aimed at boosting the numbers of non-white people throughout their productions. 4. The streaming wars kicked off with big platform launches, from Apple TV+ and Disney+ late last year, to WarnerMedia's HBO Max and NBC Universal's Peacock this year. 2020 showed us the shape of the coming second phase: increasing and refining what's on these platforms, to define the identity of the service and hold your attention. Disney this month announced plans to fill Disney+ with lots of new material – 100 titles annually for the next four years – including at least 10 new Star Wars shows and 11 Marvel programs. Warner Bros. will debut all 17 of its feature films scheduled for release in 2021 on HBO Max the same date they hit theaters. They're both gunning for each other and industry leader Netflix, which still has more subscribers than either Disney+ or HBO Max. Oliver: �Oliver with his �Dad �Oliver with his Mum. ��How cool is that? �Washington Post: Biden has vowed a far more robust and unified federal response that would utilize the heft of the U.S. government to prevent state competition. The president-elect said he would find ways to speed up the production of vaccines and their distribution so that one million people can be vaccinated each day, which he said would be five to six times the current rate. So here we are. There is just over 15 hours to 2021. Let us try to move forward into 2021 with hope “Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all - (Emily Dickinson) See you next year. I’ll leave you in 2020 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_2020-12-31_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-295 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 2020-12-31 Title A name given to the resource Day 295 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/3015689374ad99687692ac14a882c605.pdf 922ee16583d010b4b644ae6289e0f500 PDF Text Text Day 296. New Years Day. by windoworks I think 2021 begins with the phrase: I never imagined. I don’t think any of us imagined what would happen in 2020. But here’s some things that didn’t happen although scientists did wonder. From Science Alert: Yellowstone's supervolcano didn't explode - although it gave off signs that it might have been imminent. An asteroid didn't slam into Earth - although 2 or more passed by really close. We weren't broiled alive by solar radiation - the sun seems to have entered a quiet phase. Aliens never invaded - even though some unknown objects have been seen in the sky. Armies of the undead never rose from the grave - really? Is that a real thing? I think this refers to the large number of newly discovered sarcophagi found in Egypt. In quite startling news: New York Times Australia changed a lyric in its national anthem from “we are young and free” to “we are one and free” to recognize Indigenous populations that have lived on the continent for more than 60,000 years. I remember the first change to the anthem. “Australians sons“ was changed to “Australians all”. It takes a while for the government to catch up with the reality of the day. In New Zealand, Maori is the official language, but in Australia there are about 260 distinct Aboriginal language groups, so it is difficult to designate a specific language as the official language. At the same time, In Australia, Bloomberg: Authorities are battling to contain Covid-19 clusters in Australia’s two largest cities, urging people to avoid large New Year’s Eve gatherings to prevent wider outbreaks. Ten new cases were reported overnight in Sydney, with a cluster on the Northern Beaches growing to 144, New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters Thursday. A second group of infections in the city’s inner west has risen to nine. Neighboring Victoria state, which had gone 61 days without recording community transmission of the virus, said eight cases had been detected. The outbreaks in the two states are likely connected, with someone who’d returned from New South Wales attending a Thai restaurant in Melbourne that’s linked to other new infections in the city. The outbreaks are a blow to Australia, which had largely suppressed community transmission through rigorous testing and contact tracing, and by shuttering the international border -- with all returned overseas travelers made to isolate for 14 days in quarantine hotels �And in approximately 6 months time, we may have to quarantine upon arrival, unless we are vaccinated and have an electronic vaccination passport. Here’s a reminder of the dreadful bush (forest) fires in Australia at the beginning of 2020. And while you think this infant new year can’t be worse than 2020, here’s this alarm sounding: AP A more contagious form of the coronavirus has begun circulating in the United States. In Britain, where it was first identified, the new variant became the predominant form of the coronavirus in just three months, accelerating that nation’s surge and filling its hospitals. It may do the same in the United States, exacerbating an unrelenting rise in deaths and overwhelming the already strained health care system, experts warned. The new variant seems to infect more people than earlier versions of the coronavirus, even when the environments are the same. It’s not clear what gives the variant this advantage, although there are indications that it may infect cells more efficiently. Meanwhile in the severely challenged Southern California area: �NBC LOS ANGELES — For Dr. Anita Sircar, an infectious disease specialist, there are no breaks and few days off. An implacable surge of Covid-19 cases has overwhelmed Southern California hospitals and intensive care units for most of December after public health officials warned for weeks that people should refrain from gathering with those outside their households over the holidays. Yet millions of Americans desperate to reconnect with loved ones and restore a sense of normalcy ignored the warnings on Thanksgiving. As a result, coronavirus cases spiked, and ICU capacity dwindled. "It's relentless," Sircar said, speaking on the phone between patient rounds and doctor meetings at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance. State public health officials recently extended modified stay-at-home orders for the regions hardest hit by the surge, including Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, where ICUs have been full for several weeks. Hospitals have built makeshift ICUs, and they sometimes move patients into gift shops or pediatric wards to care for the sick and dying. At Providence, a tent has been erected in the parking lot to accommodate overflow patients when the time comes. And the time will come, said several medical professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic. "We're on this wheel that just keeps turning," Sircar said. "It's a revolving door that doesn't stop." Yesterday I texted with Tracey - remember Tracey who wrote a piece for ‘The view from far away’ which described the difference between her mother’s life in Sydney Australia and her life in L.A? She has hunkered down, on her own, and is not even going to the grocery store until things calm down again. Her situation is even more dire than ours. Of course the extreme weather continues here in spite of the virus. Here’s a photo this week from the Midwest: �Well thats scary. This next piece made me laugh, and I just have to share it with you, with the rider: none of these items have been eaten or drunk by me. Washington Post Dalgona coffee Many of us have given up regular visits to our favorite barista, and so dalgona coffee, a South Korean drink in which instant coffee, sugar and milk are whipped into a foamy blend, was a (super-sweet) stand-in for our coffee-shop fix. Cloud bread This airy, meringue-like concoction, made from egg whites, cornstarch and sugar, became a TikTok �darling this summer. It’s relatively tasteless, but its popularity probably can be chalked up to its ease of preparation — and that weirdly satisfying moment when people tear into them on camera. Charcuterie chalets. Move over, gingerbread. This year, we fashioned abodes shingled with salami, sided with breadsticks and decorated with almonds. Maybe it’s because many of us have been housebound this year that we created odes to our too-familiar surroundings in a meaty medium? Sourdough Sourdough baking, like bingeing “Tiger King,” was a very early-pandemic vibe, fueled by yeast shortages and an excess of time at home. People nurtured their starters as if they were particularly needy children, traded recipes for their castoff dough, and photographed the pillowy interiors and artfully slashed crusts like proud parents. Carrot bacon These seasoned, crunchy strips of root vegetable became one of the few non-carby breakout food stars of the pandemic after vegan chef Tabitha Brown’s TikTok recipe got 3.6 million views. Bonus trend points: They’re crisped in an air fryer, the pandemic cook’s favorite kitchen appliance. Canning. There’s something reassuring about having rows of gleaming jars of food you’ve harvested and “put up” for the long winter. That might be a #cottagecore fantasy for most of us, but enough people bought into it this year that retailers sold out of jars and lids Windowsill scallions. Our dreams of self-sufficiency were further fed by the craze for turning kitchen scraps into crops — even if only on a very small scale. Beyond offering a boost to a salad (or just a way to entertain a cooped-up kid), those little green sprouts might have been the glimmer of hope we needed. Fancy focaccia. Dough became the canvas for legions of newly minted flatbread artists, who took to the trend of studding loafs with baked-in designs for edible masterpieces (van Gogh never had it so good). Floral motifs were the most popular, with herbs and vegetables forming intricate blooms. Pancake cereal. Tiny pancakes piled in a bowl and drenched in syrup sounds like a breakfast that only Buddy the Elf would love. But plenty of TikTokers joined in, apparently wooed by the combination of cuteness (miniature foods are a whole genre online) and the perennial popularity of cereal, and the platform dubbed the mash-up its top food trend of 2020. Frog bread. Edible, lumpy amphibians with googly eyes were the antidote to the precise and lovely ethos of the #breadart trend that we didn’t know we needed. Bakers delighted in their imperfect creations, sharing photos of their goofy, cartoonish bakes — along with some badly needed joy. So here’s what we spent the last day of 2020 continuing to do: ��The spare bedroom has now become Packing Central and I think we have reached box number 20, with more boxes ordered and a storage facility located nearby. I imagine this will be our daily life now in 2021. Oliver time: ��I’m rather fond of the big bath at Great Aunt Bernie’s house and I don’t always need water �to play with the toys. �The last 2020 photo of Murphy happily hoarding toys at her new �home. Midnight in Sydney. A very subdued fireworks display with almost no audience. Here in Grand Rapids, a friend offered a ‘chalk the doors’ message: This day marks the occasion of a time-honored Christian tradition of “chalking the doors.” The formula for the ritual - adapted for 2021 - is simple: take chalk of any color and write the following above the entrance of your home: 20 + C + M + B + 21 The letters have two meanings. First, they represent the initials of the Magi - Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar - who came to visit Jesus in His first home. They also abbreviate the Latin phrase, Christus mansionem benedicat "May Christ bless the house.”The “+” signs represent the cross, and the “20” at the beginning and the “21” at the end mark the year. Taken together, this inscription is performed as a request for Christ to bless those homes that are so marked. And another friend offered this: I will be opening my doors and sweeping out 2020. I believe it is an Irish tradition. I am not sure how long I should sweep, especially after 2020, but will give it my best shot! Here’s to a great new year! So here we are. A new year begins. There is hope for the future but it will not be the normal future. The world has taken a beating as we have also. From our house to yours - wherever you are in the world - let �this be a happier year. Let us all be wiser and kinder and more generous and content with the small pleasures life offers us. 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_2021-01-01_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-296 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 2021-01-01 Title A name given to the resource Day 296 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/04a7c89e15555a3795eecb6f98f7924f.pdf fde4fd06a627eec9eb21fa15cc7bfed4 PDF Text Text Day 297. Saturday January 2. 183 sleeps to go. by windoworks Yesterday the US passed the 20M mark of total cases. And all those people who traveled for New Years Eve are now returning home this weekend. Once again there were posts on FaceBook and videos online of governors and senior medical personnel begging people to forgo the family gathering and just stay safely at home. For many, that plea fell on deaf ears. I think thats the hardest thing, to just keep going, to keep staying safe and being cautious. My brother-in-law wrote that he hoped Craig and I would not spend our last 6 months in America shut inside. We do go out, in the car, and sometimes we walk together when the weather is not too harsh and the sidewalk not too slippery with ice. The family keeps reassuring me that it will be different in Australia, but in this morning’s news the state borders remain closed with Sydney now facing mandated masking in a number of situations and Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland noting small outbreaks. There is no immediate plan to begin vaccinating in Australia, and that worries me. And in astonishing news (if Its correct), the United Kingdom has begun mixing and matching vaccines. How would that work? Aren’t you supposed to get 2 doses of one particular vaccine? Also, Brexit seems final (finally) and now there is a hard border between the United Kingdom and Europe. Brexit was supposed to make the United Kingdom a strong independent entity on the world market - but I don’t think it will happen now. This finalization has made Scotland rethink its position as part of the UK as financially it is more beneficial to remain a part of the EU. This may signal the break up of the UK, we’ll have to wait and see. Washington Post What a fantastic year! So many great developments, right? Carbon emissions were down! (Because we were all afraid to leave our homes.) Confederate statues were toppled! (Because they were up for way too long to begin with.) Voter turnout broke records! (Because democracy was in great peril.) Scientists developed the fastest-ever vaccine! (For a virus that continues to ravage the country.) Sigh. It was a year that broke our internal clocks. How is it already over when we never even left March? Why does every day feel like Thursday? Is the election still happening? It's been nine months of the pandemic, six weeks of electoral bickering, Four Seasons Total Landscaping of complete pandemonium. It was a year that melted our brains. It was a year that melted Rudy’s hair. The sky was orange. The floor was lava. The moon was wet. The hornets were murderous. The president was under impeachment. (Remember that?) UFOs, it turns out, might be real; Ellen’s kindness was not. The Olympics were postponed. The holidays were canceled. Dr. Fauci carried on. It was a year that broke our hearts. �Even though 2021 will bring more of These Challenging Times, soon enough our emails may actually find us well. And by the way, masks are very much still In. Here is a prediction from covid19.health data.org: 567,195 COVID-19 deaths based on current projection scenario by April 1, 2021. I couldn’t find a projection for cases but as it seems we are well over 20M cases this morning, I imagine we will be at or over 30M cases by Friday this week. Our only option is to stay safely at home. CNN The US surpassed 20 million total recorded Covid-19 cases on Friday, hours after the country ushered in 2021 and left behind its deadliest month of the pandemic.The nation also has set a Covid-19 hospitalization record for four straight days. The high counts are a grim reminder that even with 2020 behind us, the pandemic continues to ravage parts of the country. And some leaders warn the worst is still ahead. "We are still going to have our toughest and darkest days," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN on Thursday. More than 125,370 coronavirus patients were in US hospitals Thursday, the fourth consecutive day that number set a record for the pandemic, COVID Tracking Project data shows. As of early Friday afternoon, the country had recorded a total of more than 20,007,000 Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins data. Going by official tallies, it took 292 days for the US to reach its first 10 million cases, and just 54 more days to double it. However, researchers have long said the actual number of infections likely is many millions higher, undercounted in part because of testing limitations. One US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modeling study suggests as many as 53 million people in the United States might have been infected from February through September alone. December was the deadliest month of the pandemic for the US, accounting for more than 77,500 of the country's 346,000 Covid-19 deaths, Johns Hopkins University data shows.And experts have warned the grim numbers could climb further nationwide in the coming weeks, with swells stemming from gatherings and travels over the holidays. Despite repeated calls from local and state leaders for people to celebrate with only members of their household, millions of Americans opted to spend time away from home. On Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration reported its fourth-busiest day of the pandemic, screening more than 1 million people for the fifth straight day. And here’s a little known story from Stuff.co.NZ: A wave of emotionally drained health workers from the United States and United Kingdom are looking to escape Covid-19-ravaged hospitals by moving to New Zealand. Accent Medical Recruitment managing director Prudence Thomson said medical recruiters were reporting high demand for work in New Zealand. “They are exhausted, they cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel … they are angry and scared – and these are doctors with 30 years experience, and they just want to make the move away from �their home country.” Texan nurse Ana Carino was among those hoping a new life in New Zealand would heal the emotional trauma of working in a country ravaged by Covid-19. Wow! So now some of our vital nurses and doctors are leaving for the relative safety of New Zealand! And who can blame them? Their hours have been extended so that staff often work 18 hour shifts. Now I know this happened long before Covid, but now working long days or nights in very difficult and mainly depressing circumstances is taking a dreadful toll. And thats not taking into account the number of medical staff getting sick. Once more, corruption has arrived, this time in the distribution of the vaccines. Firstly, the federal government has washed its hands of any responsibility for distribution and has laid it all on the states’ shoulders. They, in turn, have mandated the hospitals to distribute it. Remember, the same hospitals battling to keep up with the extremely ill covid patients? There’s no extra money from the government to pay for this, like PPE was, its every state for themselves. In desperation, Michigan’s governor has turned to those states on the borders to form a coalition to work together: Ohio, Illinois,Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana - and that seems to be working well. And just to keep us on out tippy toes, there is the Georgia runoff on Tuesday which will determine whether Mitch McConnell keeps his draconian grip on the Senate, followed by the election ratification by the Congress on Wednesday in which 140 some Republican house members have vowed to vote against in hopes of returning Trump to the White House as President. As this constitutes a form of treason according to the Constitution, Nancy Pelosi does have the power to refuse to seat the 140plus Republicans. I’ve seen Nancy waggle her finger at Trump. She’s fearless. So its beginning to look as though Trump will have to be carried out of the White House. He returned early from Mar-A-Lago on New Years Eve because he was worried he was losing his tenacious grip on the Republican Party. I cannot imagine what will happen once Biden and Harris are ensconced in the White House. It may be a disruptive and contentious 4 years. And just a word about all the badly behaved Republicans in the House and the Senate - midterms are next, baby. Oliver. �With Daddy at the seaside. �For the second part of our day excursion to Lucca, we left the city and drove up into the hills to a winery. �The winery �gate �Walking in. Winery buildings including the tasting room. �Some of the vines �Me in the shade - it was hot! �The winery is also a bed and breakfast. �An arty shot of the mountains. 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_2021-01-02_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-297 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 2021-01-02 Title A name given to the resource Day 297 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/366601d3d665711089a872c463e4966f.pdf 131fe79d6e735bd69de94ed440fc360b PDF Text Text Day 298. by windoworks Its one of those mornings where I can’t think where to start. It is gently snowing outside on a day when my weather app said mainly cloudy. Like all things I am learning to rely on my own judgement. There are 17 days until Biden’s Inauguration. There is one more day before the Georgia runoff (who knows how that will turn out) and 2 more days before the Congress vote on the election. Meanwhile, the administration is trying hard to keep Biden, Harris and their team in the dark. And no one, no one at all is saying ‘isn’t there something in the Constitution and the Amendments which can protect us from all this unsettling nonsense?’ Apparently the Proud Boys are bringing their flags, their weapons and their vitriol to Washing DC on Wednesday, to show their support for Trump and his anti American agenda. Yesterday Craig and I talked about this as we went for a drive in the snowy countryside. Some time ago Craig told me that historians believe that in the not too distant future, there will be little distinction between the skin color of humans. As evolution progresses and intermarriage and intermingling become more common, a person with pale skin will become more unusual. I always wonder why human body hues are named thus. I have never seen a white skinned person, unless they are an albino which means they lack the pigmentation to protect them from the sun’s rays. Also, the hugely inappropriate term ‘redskins’ offers an idea of someone with red skin. Again. Never seen one. Yellow peril is a derogatory term for people of Asian descent and I’ve never seen anyone with yellow skin. I suspect that these terms were all coined by so called white men, in an effort to confirm their grip on the peoples of the world they had designated ‘lesser’ and who could be forced into inferior positions working for the white man. Perhaps what we are seeing now is the frantic effort by so called ‘white’ men and women to desperately hold on to power and influence over those they still deem inferior. But we here in the US consider ourselves to be a democracy and of course I consulted Wikipedia and here’s what I found: According to American political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens. Todd Landman, nevertheless, draws our attention to the fact that democracy and human rights are two different concepts and that "there must be greater specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of democracy and human rights". Hmmm. In a completely different topic and apart from the pandemic, extremely worrying, Russian hackers based in the US successfully hacked into an ever growing number of government organizations as well as businesses and - we missed it altogether for 9 MONTHS! Literally since March last year, Russian �hackers have been worming their way into practically every aspect of American life. Now the news is that this happened and we are now aware of it - but no one is discussing how we go about fixing this or even if it is fixable. Last week my messenger account was hacked and every person on my FB friends list was at risk. I changed my FB password and deleted messenger (I’ll put it back soon) and I advised all my contacts not to open it or to change their FB password if they did. And all the while the pandemic persists. This morning the US has a total of 20.5M cases and 350K deaths. Remember, these totals are from yesterday, not today. In Southern California they are struggling to stay afloat. Here in Michigan our case numbers are on the rise again with 8,493 new cases yesterday. Michigan deaths stand at 13,296, soon the dead will fill 3 Ford Theaters. This morning Craig is in his GVSU office, sorting through his large bookshelves. At home, we continue to sort and divest - our non essential seasonal decorations have been given away. July seems so much closer after you have passed through Christmas and New Year. Oliver. �It had been raining and the playground equipment was wet, so of course Oliver was wet �through too. He climbs on everything and has absolutely no fear. Walking in Aquinas College grounds �Aquinas woods �Reeds Lake �Reeds Lake In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti. There would be a flashback but I am confused as to where exactly we went next. I need to confer with Craig. What will possibly happen next? I ask myself. The world seems in such disarray. Ah well, day 298 of being extremely careful. 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_2021-01-03_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-298 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 2021-01-03 Title A name given to the resource Day 298 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