96 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2c37b4735f64c09768f604a617238949.pdf 7410292656dfc14a91835f02ae29ca9e PDF Text Text Day 299. by windoworks Yesterday in an astounding news item, a transcript and recording of a phone call Trump made to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State was released. Washington Post ‘obtained’ a recording of the call and released it to the whole wide world. It is jaw dropping stuff and with 16 days left of his presidency left, it puts Trump in a precarious position legally. He can’t be touched for the remaining 16 days but after that, its game over. Lawyers in New York are carefully preparing their briefs as we speak. Here’s some of the transcript: President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions. Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that �President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate. Trump dismissed their arguments. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.” The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office. The pressure Trump put on Raffensperger is the latest example of his attempt to subvert the outcome of the Nov. 3 election through personal outreach to state Republican officials. He previously invited Michigan Republican state leaders to the White House, pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a call to try to replace that state’s electors and asked the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to help reverse his loss in that state. During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability. Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal experts said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” Trump appears to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia. Throughout the call, Trump detailed an exhaustive list of disinformation and conspiracy theories to support his position. He claimed without evidence that he had won Georgia by at least a half-million votes. He floated a barrage of assertions that have been investigated and disproved: that thousands of dead people voted; that an Atlanta election worker scanned 18,000 forged ballots three times each and “100 percent” were for Biden; that thousands more voters living out of state came back to Georgia illegally just to vote in the election. Trump sounded at turns confused and meandering. At one point, he referred to Kemp as “George.” He tossed out several different figures for Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia and referred to the Senate runoff, which is Tuesday, as happening “tomorrow” and “Monday.” It was clear from the call that Trump has surrounded himself with aides who have fed his false perceptions that the election was stolen. When he claimed that more than 5,000 ballots were cast in Georgia in the name of dead people, Raffensperger responded forcefully: “The actual number was two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted.” Yet Trump also recognized that he was failing to persuade Raffensperger or Germany of anything, saying toward the end, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.”But he continued to make his case in repetitive fashion, until finally, after roughly an hour, Raffensperger put an end to the conversation: “Thank you, President Trump, for your time.” �So here’s what Subsection 20511 of title 52 of the US Code states: A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office(1) knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for(A) registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote; (B) urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or (C) exercising any right under this chapter; or (2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by(A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held; or (B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held, shall be fined in accordance with title 18 (which fines shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury, miscellaneous receipts (pursuant to section 3302 of title 31), notwithstanding any other law), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. And that’s just the US code. The State of Georgia code says: The recording of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, first reported by The Washington Post, led a number of election and criminal defense lawyers to conclude that by pressuring Mr. Raffensperger to “find” the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state, Mr. Trump either broke the law or came close to it. “It seems to me like what he did clearly violates Georgia statutes,” said Leigh Ann Webster, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer, citing a state law that makes it illegal for anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage” in election fraud. And then, then, 10 former secretaries of defense weighed in. From Washington Post: Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld are the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense. As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domesticWe did not swear it to an individual or a party. Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived. �As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team. We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country. And also this: News & Guts Here’s the problem. We’ve lived with lies from the Trump White House, and their water-carrying GOP allies for years. But in the eleventh hour, the falsehoods have become dangerous. They are now threatening our democracy by subverting the will of the voters. The votes have been counted, re-counted, audited, often more than once, litigated, re-litigated and nothing has been found. The election was fair. Donald Trump lost. That should be the end of the story. �All eyes will be on the Georgia runoff tomorrow and then the Congress vote on Wednesday. Will that be the end of it, who knows? �Over 4 years the actions taken by Trump and his administration have continued to be cruel and self serving. A friend published a list of all the actions the Trump administration has done. The list was very long and extremely depressing. Actions such as lifting restrictions on the amount of mercury released into groundwater seem without merit. It seemed as though over the 4 years he was motivated by the idea that he was the President and so he could do anything he felt like, as well as anything that would reverse actions that the Obama administration put in place. The more he tried to obliterate Obama’s legacy, the more Obama’s legacy seemed to shine. And here’s these words to consider. ��Now, to the virus. Yesterday the case numbers in the US reached 20.7M. Remember, this is just the known cases, from the 20.7M people who have been tested. The real number of positive cases is probably 8-10 times that number. The deaths stand at 352K and that is, of course, the real number of deaths recorded. This morning, the authorities closed all outdoor dining in Manhattan Beach, L.A., where our friend Tracey lives. I think about her, hunkered down and on her own. How fortunate are Craig and I to have each other in this pandemic. But there’s always a new and disturbing development with the virus: New York Times The rest of the world may now be at risk of a new Covid-19 surge. The variants already seem to have spread around much of the world. More than 30 other countries, including the U.S., have diagnosed cases with the variant first detected in Britain, which is known as B.1.1.7. Scientists say that it could soon become the dominant form of the virus. The B.1.1.7 variant appears to be between 10 percent and 60 percent more transmissible than the original version. One possible reason: It may increase the amount of the virus that infected people carry in their noses and throats, which in turn would raise the likelihood that they infect others through breathing, talking, sneezing, coughing and so on. There’s a new idea circulating of giving as many people as possible the first dose of the vaccine. That way more people will have some protection, rather than none. I’m not sure of the science behind that. Oliver time. �Out with Dad �at the park �Look Mum and Auntie Benie - I can run! �Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I’ve given up guessing and I’m hoping for the best while expecting the worst. I’ll leave you today with these words: � 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_2021-01-04_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-299 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 2021-01-04 Title A name given to the resource Day 299 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/f30b32933234aef3d53b0cc2b85fcec1.pdf db3773dee8f975e956ff5cb387f0b203 PDF Text Text Day 300. Wow! by windoworks There are some mornings where I don’t know where to start. If I incorporated most of the articles I have read since yesterday morning, this blogpost would become a long winded saga. Just like my life at the moment. Washington Post asked 8 scientists when they thought life would return to normal, and first, when would the US achieve herd immunity. Here’s a definition from John Hopkins: When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection—or herd immunity (also called herd protection)—to those who are not immune to the disease. For example, if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick (and won’t spread the disease any further). In this way, the spread of infectious �diseases is kept under control. Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 50% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity. Yesterday the case total reached 20.9M in the US. In a prior post I said that scientists had calculated that the true number of cases was 8-10 times that number. Recently the consensus is that 3 times the number is the true number. So while yesterday’s count was 20.9M, in fact it is more likely that approximately 63M is the true number of cases. That makes us all sit up and take notice, doesn’t it? So the experts in the article all seemed to agree that any return to ‘normal’ depends on vaccination distribution (coping with limited supplies and efficient systems of distribution, staff to inject etc). Overall they seemed to think that 2021 may look distressingly similar to 2020 and that herd immunity may not occur until the end of this year. Crooked Media: The more contagious (but not more deadly) coronavirus variant first found in the U.K. has spread to dozens of countries, and has been detected in Colorado, California, Florida, and New York. In the UK, my niece Elle and her partner Terry are locked down again for the next 6 weeks. Elle can work from home, but Terry who is a self-employed builder, doesn’t know if he’ll be allowed to work or not. And in keeping an eye on Southern California, here’s this from Crooked Media: Groups of anti-maskers have been terrorizing grocery stores and shopping malls in Los Angeles, where hospitals are so overwhelmed that ambulances are waiting up to eight hours to offload patients. Lets just read that last part again, shall we? Hospitals are so overwhelmed that ambulances are waiting up to eight, eight hours to offload patients. I didn’t mention the new death total from yesterday, but this seems like a good place to put it: 354,000. That is just 30,000 less than the entire population of Cleveland. Imagine all but one corner of Cleveland empty. And every single one of these deaths is on the shoulders of Donald Trump. Every single one. I hear you say: perhaps its not his fault, and I say: for 2 reasons - 1. If he had done anything to facilitate the smooth roll out of testing, equipment , given a federal mask mandate, encouraged vaccination (I could go on), the results would have been vastly different. And 2. HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. The buck stops with him. ��Washington Post: New year, same rhetoric. The coronavirus death toll in the United States passed 350,000 on Sunday, and President Trump used the day to minimize the number of dead, which he called “far exaggerated.” With 2,000 to 3,000 people dying each day of covid-19 in the U.S., the nation's top health officials quickly disputed the president's claim. “All you need to do . . . is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening,” Anthony S. Fauci told NBC. “Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths.” Trump also complained that he is “in no way given credit for” his work on the coronavirus, while others are doing victory laps. But one thing that Trump wants to claim credit for — the vaccine rollout — is not going that well. Though the pace of development was incredible, Americans are frustrated and struggling to sign up for their shots in a system that varies widely from county to county and is in many places overwhelmed. Here’s another all-consuming news story. NPR A top election official with the Georgia secretary of state's office went line by line Monday refuting allegations made by President Trump about the state's voting system. The strong pushback by state officials comes a day after a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was made public, in which Trump urged the secretary to "find" enough votes to overturn his loss in the state. During that call, Trump cited a number of conspiracy theories that Gabriel Sterling, the state's voting system implementation manager, debunked as inaccurate or false Monday afternoon. More than a month ago, Sterling warned that "someone's going to get shot" due to the Trump-inflamed conspiracy theories. Those unfounded theories have continued online and in far-right circles as Tuesday's runoff elections in the state approach. Those races will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. "It's whack-a-mole again," Sterling said Monday, speaking in front of a poster that had many of the debunked claims Trump mentioned. "It's Groundhog Day again." �Here’s the poster. Interesting that Gabriel Sterling used the time honored format of ‘show and tell’. Crooked Media • In his closing arguments at Trump’s impeachment trial, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said, “What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100 percent. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way.” That prediction has proven true, and �now we have to ask ourselves: What are the odds if left unpenalized that the GOP will continue using his anti-democratic playbook? We don’t need to look very far backwards to know the answer. And also: The Atlantic But a subset of elected officials, nicknamed “the sedition caucus,” remains troublingly aligned with the president's antidemocratic campaign. • What these Republicans are doing is worse than treason, Tom Nichols argues. “The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something.” • McConnell’s grip on the Senate is slipping. About a dozen Republicans plan to defy him in Wednesday’s vote. Though the majority leader will likely survive the mutiny, “he’ll have to manage a conference divided” under Biden, Russell Berman warns. • This is the price of a failed impeachment. Saturday’s call, David A. Graham writes, was “eerily reminiscent” of the Ukraine phone call at the center of those proceedings. Back then, critics warned that, if not removed, Trump would do it again. This morning Craig read a story that says Trump has booked a plane to fly to Scotland on January 19, the day before the Inauguration of Joe Biden. Is he hoping for shelter at his golf course there? First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland will not be pleased. I think there is an extradition policy between the Scotland and the US. He may have to come back here to face the music. And Ivanka and Jared have bought a private island off the coast of Miami, but unless they declare it an independent nation - they’ll have to face the music too. In the meantime, Georgia votes today. Please, oh please let both the Democratic Senate candidates win! Then tomorrow is the day the Congress votes to confirm Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. We’ll see how that goes and whether the dissenters face any consequences. And remember how Trump encouraged all the crazies to come to Washington DC tomorrow to show him support? Washington Post Proud Boys leader arrested in D.C. on a charge of burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church last month, police say, Enrique Tarrio, who had just arrived in the District for Wednesday’s planned protest, also was charged with illegally possessing firearms magazines, police said. He was being held late Monday. Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said Tarrio is charged with one misdemeanor count of destruction of property in connection with the Dec. 12 burning of the banner from Asbury United Methodist Church. Tarrio had told The Washington Post last month that he was among those who burned the banner. Police found the magazines during the arrest. �Because, as we all know, you need lots of firearms at a protest - to shoot people if they don’t agree with you. After all that: Oliver �Its water play day at Daycare - my favorite! �Flashback (Yes! Its back!) Our next port of call was Civitavecchia, which is the main port for Rome. This signaled the end of the second cruise and the start of the third and final cruise. We could have taken the bus into Rome, but we have been to Rome before and so we decided to explore Civitavecchia instead, which turned out to be quite interesting.Civitavecchia is a coastal town northwest of Rome, in Italy. Built in the 2nd century, the Port of Civitavecchia still retains some of its original features, like the Roman Dock. The port area also includes the 16th-century Michelangelo Fort. Nearby, the National Archaeological Museum displays bronze and ceramic artifacts. Northeast of town are the Terme Taurine, the ruins of a Roman thermal bath complex. ― Google The covered marketplace �Ahh, cheese. �The docks with our ship in the back ground. �Medieval fortifications �The Michelangelo Fort �Features of the Roman dock. And to finish, here’s two memes I couldn’t resist: �And............ �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_2021-01-05_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-300 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 2021-01-05 Title A name given to the resource Day 300 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/3f7b43c7ddb4919932952b76522ddcfe.pdf 60b2cc9c3b40120bb490257f214cd380 PDF Text Text Day 301. by windoworks Remember how I said: you can’t make this stuff up? Turns out I was wrong - you CAN make this stuff up. Lets start with the Georgia runoff, an election which could change the balance of power in the US Senate. At this point (7.47am Eastern Standard Time) Rev. Raphael Warnock (Dem) has won his seat and with 98% of all votes counted, Jon Ossoff (Dem) is leading over David Perdue (Rep) 50.2% to 49.8%. So with all �fingers and toes crossed, Mitch McConnell may have lost control of the Senate. Here’s hoping. Of course, here’s the new mantra of the GOP from Crooked Media: Only Republicans can win elections legitimately. In the long run, I don’t think that’s going to fly. Naturally, there are memes: Today marks the second of three huge events in January. First was the Georgia runoff and the second happens this afternoon when the House and Senate convene to confirm the Electoral College votes to �install Joe Biden in the White House. Several House members and a few Senators have vowed to contest these valid results with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. This means that the vote will take much longer than normal as each state result questioned (and there appears to be three) takes 2 hours each to discuss. Really? What could possibly take more than 2 minutes to say: there is no evidence of fraud at all. Move on. But no matter how long it takes, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election (dare I say it?) fair and square, and no matter what, will be moving into the White House on January 20. If anything else happens to affect that, then we are no longer living in a democracy. And of course, Trump has called his supporters (Proud Boys etc) to come to DC today to cause a riot, kill people, whatever. New York Times: • Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington requested support from the Army National Guard as right-wing groups, including the Proud Boys, traveled to the capital to protest in support of Trump. So Trump said at his “rally” in Georgia on Monday that if VP Pence didn’t overturn the election results on Wednesday, he wouldn’t like him so much. But as Pence has repeatedly stated, he doesn’t have that ability. CNN And what the actual heck could Pence do after Trump was defeated at the polls, rejected by the courts, unseated by the Electoral College and denied by members of his own party? Here’s what’s really happening at the White House: The Atlantic. President Donald Trump may still be pushing to overturn the election results, but the staff of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue know it’s over. “None of the advisers and aides I’ve spoken with over the past couple of weeks is under any illusion that Trump will serve a second term,” our White House correspondent Peter Nicholas reports. “The show’s about to end.” Today, Congress is set to vote to certify the Electoral College results, despite antidemocratic defections by Trump and allies. • Here’s what the last days in the White House are like.“After January 6, I think you’ll see a traditional defeated president,” one person close to the White House told Peter. • One of Trump’s final rallies of his term was “a classic of the form.” By that, our staff writer David A. Graham means that the Dalton, Georgia event was “sometimes entertaining, often incoherent, always erratic, and entirely terrifying.” • Meanwhile, the race to succeed him is on. “Look at the behavior, over the past few days, of the most ardent Trumpists,” Anne Applebaum writes. Trumpism, she argues, is really about the fantasy of unending victory. �And remember how I told you Trump was planning to fly to his golf course in Scotland? Last night First Minster Nicola Sturgeon locked Scotland down due to the raging pandemic. No international flights in or out except for essential travel. Actually, I think the lockdown is just a handy excuse in Trump’s case - she wouldn’t want him there in the best of times. Washington Post The White House denied reports that President Trump will be in Scotland during Joe Biden's inauguration, after the Scottish leader warned that golf is not essential travel. Although Trump accused Bob Woodward of drinking the Kool Aid regarding the pandemic, I think Trump must imbibe it daily. And here’s what that expression means: “Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an expression used to refer to a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards. The phrase often carries a negative connotation. Wikipedia. So that leads us to the virus. Here’s how things stand in California. NPR • Paramedics in Southern California are being told to conserve oxygen and not to bring patients to the hospital who have little chance of survival as Los Angeles County grapples with a new wave of COVID-19 patients that is expected to get worse in the coming days. • The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency issued a directive Monday that ambulance crews should administer supplemental oxygen only to patients whose oxygen saturation levels fall below 90%. • In a separate memo from the county's EMS Agency, paramedic crews have been told not to transfer patients who experience cardiac arrest unless spontaneous circulation can be restored on the scene. • Both measures announced Monday, which were issued by the agency's medical director, Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, were taken in an attempt to get ahead of an expected surge to come following the winter holidays. • Many hospitals in the region "have reached a point of crisis and are having to make very tough decisions about patient care," Dr. Christina Ghaly, the LA County director of health services, said at a briefing Monday. • "The volume being seen in our hospitals still represents the cases that resulted from the Thanksgiving holiday," she said. • "We do not believe that we are yet seeing the cases that stemmed from the Christmas holiday," Ghaly added. "This, sadly, and the cases from the recent New Year's holiday, is still before us, and hospitals across the region are doing everything they can to prepare." So they are reaching that moment we have seen in medic tents in war movies where the red tag on a patients toe means: leave this patient to die. We can’t save them. The directive speaks to ambulances �taking in non-responsive Covid patients (that is, dead) and transporting them to hospital while trying to revive them. The consequences of that action are: extreme risk for the ambulance crew and then time out for deep sanitation of the ambulance. Also, L.A. County is running out of oxygen because Covid pneumonia patients with use significantly more oxygen per minute than regular pneumonia patients. Who knew that? And just to cheer you up: NPR An 18-year-old Georgia man tested positive for a variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the Georgia Department of Public Health said Tuesday. This is the state’s first reported case of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, which is the same variant discovered in the United Kingdom in September 2020. The Atlantic: 4 Numbers That Make the Pandemic’s Massive Death Toll Sink In It’s difficult to fully comprehend the magnitude of 357,000 deaths. Other metrics can be more illuminating. 1. ON AVERAGE, EACH PERSON IN THE U.S. WHO HAS DIED FROM COVID-19 WAS DEPRIVED OF ABOUT 13 YEARS OF LIFE. 2. FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE WORLD WAR II, U.S. LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH COULD DROP BY A FULL YEAR. 3. ABOUT ONE IN 800 BLACK AMERICANS HAS DIED FROM COVID-19, WHILE ONE IN 1,325 WHITE AMERICANS HAS. 4. ROUGHLY 3.1 MILLION AMERICANS HAVE LOST A CLOSE RELATIVE TO COVID-19. �Is it Oliver time yet, I hear you ask. We need Oliver to cheer us up. Okay, I hear you. �Oliver graduated to the next room at Daycare. He’s a big boy now and he only has one nap a day. As Zoe would say: where did my baby go? After Rome, our next stop was Amalfi. In the morning, Craig and I opted for different tours. I went on a walking tour of the town. �The Amalfi coast from the ship. Obviously we had to anchor offshore and ride in on a tender �Our tour �guide �Walking up the steep steps to the Amalfi Cathedral for the next part of our �tour. �The Baptistery doors �The Moorish Courtyard �inside �Medieval wall paintings �The private chapel/museum. �Stunning. �Downstairs there was a Mass being conducted �I was overheated and exhausted so I begged off the rest of my tour and waited for Craig to �return. Then we found this little cafe to have lunch. When I asked if they had gluten free, the waiter looked at me in astonishment and said: but of course! We then ate the best 4 course gluten free lunch ever! More Amalfi tomorrow. Be careful, be safe and always be kind. � 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_2021-01-06_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-301 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 2021-01-06 Title A name given to the resource Day 301 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/24a3a0d3dd9e9ecfc3e12413230a5e0d.pdf c70f3940745c35b913b1abb37a08d233 PDF Text Text Day 302. A day I will never forget. by windoworks This will be a record of yesterday. A day I still cannot believe occurred. In the past 4 years I have repeatedly warned that Trump and his enablers would tear this country apart. I am not happy to be proved right. Yesterday was unthinkable, terrifying and it eclipsed the shining star of the United States of America. As a country and the population, we may never recover. Trump has ripped the very fabric of democracy. There is no safe haven and the halls of government have been desecrated. What led all those jeering people to do this? Who encouraged their dangerous behavior? Of course, we all know the answer it was Donald Trump. The man who lost his bid for a second term and orchestrated the loss of the Republican Senate majority. Trump, who reduced Mitch McConnell to the lesser position of Senate Minority Leader. And who, withheld permission for the authorizing of the National Guard so that VP Pence had to take control and authorize them. For the entire length of the riot and attempted coup/insurrection, Trump sheltered in place watching events on TV and Mike Pence had to assume the role of the Acting President. There is so much more I could say, but instead I offer this account: Crooked Media Today’s attack on the Capitol was the horrific culmination of Donald Trump’s four-year-long attack on this country; it was the rejection of democracy that he represents, and it belongs to an era we’ve worked so hard to leave behind. It’s Democrats’ responsibility to make sure Trump gets left behind with it: If this country can’t impeach and remove a president for attempting a violent coup, and disqualify him from running for office again, we’ll be building our bright, bold Biden era on historically shaky ground. �There were more Trump flags than American flags Not a mask in sight. �No words. New York Times Donald Trump has been attacking American democracy for much of his time as president. He has told repeated lies about voter fraud, undermining people’s confidence in elections. He has defied �parts of the Constitution. He has spent his final weeks in office pressuring other government officials to overturn the result of an election he lost. He has occasionally encouraged his supporters to commit violence. Yesterday, hundreds of those supporters decided to take Trump literally. They fought their way through armed police, smashed windows and stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. They then spent several hours inside the building, vandalizing offices and the House floor. They injured at least 14 law enforcement officers. Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and others fled for their safety. There were still six senators and 121 representatives who voted to sustain the Arizona objection, late last night. They were overwhelmingly voted down by the rest. The rioters used teargas on the police �They scaled the walls �And scared the hell out of the few guards. �Shouting �Screaming Some were contained and arrested They smashed windows and forced open doors �These are FBI agents with their guns trained on rioters �This is a rioter jumping down to the floor of the House ���This is (I believe) a staffer from Fox News, sitting in Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi’s chair. They left insulting notes for her on her desk. A rioter blatantly stealing a podium. �This photo says it �all They are scrambling to impeach Trump or apply Amendment 25 (The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that if the President becomes unable to do his job, the Vice President becomes the President). This happened yesterday when the Vice President took over and coordinated with the DC police, the Mayor of DC, the Virginia Police and the National Guard. He took over because �having unleashed this monster, Trump seemed completely incapable of acting to subdue the rioters or even ask them to go home without adding erroneous and further inciting talk of the election being stolen. To do that, he would have to admit that he was wring and that he had, in fact, lost his re-election bid. I suspect, like his deluded cult members, Trump will die believing he was cheated out of the win. If that doesn’t signify some sort of mental confusion that qualifies him for immediate removal to a secure psychiatric facility, I don’t know what will. Or a prison - I don’t care. Yesterday was a dreadful day and we begin today still frightened and worried by what Trump and his Republican adherents might do between now and January 20. (This morning I have heard he is continuing with this shameful lie). I am frightened and worried for incoming President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. I have seen footage of the police opening the barricades and beckoning the rioters inside. Who can we trust to keep reasonable and fair politicians safe? There is much talk of the difference in the police behavior yesterday and in Lafayette Square for Trump’s barge through peaceful protesters or the nightly debacle in Oregon last year. As people are correctly saying: what if yesterday’s rioters had been black instead of overwhelmingly white? I guess, in our hearts we all know the answer. I spent time yesterday afternoon talking to my neighbor and we cried together. She had made her college aged daughter watch it on TV, so she could tell her grandchildren about it in the future. Of course we spoke on the phone - we had no other option open to us in the pandemic. And just in case yesterday wiped all memory of the pandemic we are suffering through - yesterday was the WORST day so far. Cases reached 21.4M and deaths increased in one day by 3,963 to a total of 361,000. We have reached hell in our hand basket. I could go on, but instead I will leave you today with these words published yesterday by President-Elect Biden. I watched this speech and i also received it in my inbox addressed to me. reading this through again, reduces me to tears. This is MY President. At this hour, our democracy is under an unprecedented assault. An assault on the Capitol itself. An assault on the people’s representatives, on the police officers sworn to protect them, and the public servants who work at the heart of our Republic. An assault on the rule of law.An assault on the most sacred of American undertakings: The doing of the people’s business. Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America. This is not who we are. What we are seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It is disorder. It is chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end. Now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward. You’ve heard me say this in different contexts: the words of a President matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite. To storm the Capitol, to �smash windows, to occupy offices, and to threaten the safety of duly elected officials is not protest.It is insurrection. The world is watching — and like so many other Americans, I am shocked and saddened that our nation, so long a beacon of light, hope, and democracy has come to such a dark moment. Through war and strife, America has endured much. And we will endure here and prevail now. The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy and the recovery of respect for the rule of law, and the renewal of a politics that’s about solving problems — not stoking the flames of hate and chaos. America is about honor, decency, respect, and tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been. The certification of the Electoral College votes is supposed to be a sacred ritual in which we affirm the majesty of American democracy. Today is a reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile. To preserve it requires people of good will, leaders with the courage to stand up, who are devoted not to pursuit of power and personal interest at any cost, but to the common good. Think of what our children who are watching are thinking. Think of what the rest of the world is looking at. For nearly two and a half centuries, we the people, in search of a more perfect union, have kept our eyes on that common good. America is so much better than what we’re seeing today. Watching the scenes from the Capitol, I was reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s words in an annual message to the Congress whose work has today been interrupted by chaos. President Lincoln said: “We shall nobly save or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth….The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” Our way is plain here, too. It is the way of democracy, of lawfulness, and of honor — respect for each other, and for our nation. Notwithstanding what we’ve seen today, I remain optimistic about the incredible opportunities. There has never been anything we can’t do when we do it together. And this God-awful display today is bringing home to every Republican, Democrat, and Independent in the nation that we must step up. This is the United States of America. President Trump, step up. May God Bless America. May God protect our troops and everyone at the Capitol who is trying to protect the order. Thank you, Joe Biden � 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_2021-01-07_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-302 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 2021-01-07 Title A name given to the resource Day 302 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/36e6572e3f933285abf03cef0c1be66a.pdf f7c48ea632c76e542b745ae5ba7b25e1 PDF Text Text Day 303. The aftermath by windoworks When 9/11 happened, we were living in Sydney Australia. Like the rest of the world, we sat, trapped in front of the TV and we watched it happen and the aftermath. We watched the reruns and the dissection by the experts and we tried to imagine: what if that was me? We also watched the video made by two brothers of events in the Twin Towers. There are things on that video I can never unsee. But Wednesday was altogether different. It wasn’t tragedy on a huge scale, it wasn’t an entire city decimated as well as other places in America. No, it was shocking for another reason. 9/11 was perpetrated by people who hated America and wanted to inflict great pain on the nation. We could talk about their justification but that’s not my point today. What shocked me to my core was - these are Americans who believe the most ridiculous lies and misinformation. They have been carefully nurtured by Trump, his administration and more than half the sitting Republican house members and senators. They believe astonishing things implicitly. They can offer no evidence, that’s not important. What’s important is that Trump, his family members and cohorts have confirmed all these lies and fabrication to be true. You cannot argue with them. They have shut their minds and closed their ears. The Atlantic Today’s extremists displayed a religious zeal … “Donald Trump is in the Bible,” one told our editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, during their march to the Capitol. “Get yourself ready.” �In the Bible? Really? What page? This morning, those already identified and publicly named , once they returned home to their families, immediately tried to scrub any reference to themselves off media such as FaceBook and Twitter. Did sanity suddenly rear its ugly head? One man (the one in the horned helmet) has a wife who’s a doctor and he suddenly realized this might impact her medical practice. He frantically removed the house numbers off the front of his house and worried about his children’s schools - but too late. Is it that once you get away from Trump and his hypnosis, sanity and consequences occur? What were they all thinking? Was it -we’ll just smash the glass in the windows and then rifle through offices and sit in the Leader of the House’s chair. And then take a selfie and post it on FaceBook or Instagram, because why not? Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The repercussions are starting in earnest. Washington Post President Trump was ensconced in the White House residence Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, raging about perceived betrayals, as an array of top aides weighed resigning and some senior administration officials began conversations about invoking the 25th Amendment — an extraordinary measure that would remove the president before Trump’s term expires on Jan. 20. A deep, simmering unease coursed through the administration over the president’s refusal to accept his election loss and his role in inciting a mob to storm the Capitol, disrupting the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden. One administration official described Trump’s behavior Wednesday as that of “a total monster,” while another said the situation was “insane” and “beyond the pale.” Fearful that Trump could take actions resulting in further violence and death if he remains in office even for a few days, senior administration officials were discussing Wednesday night whether the Cabinet might invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to force him out, said a person involved in the conversations. A former senior administration official briefed on the talks confirmed that preliminary discussions of the 25th Amendment were underway, although this person cautioned that they were informal and that there was no indication of an immediate plan of action. Both of these people, like some others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter. Under the 25th Amendment, the president can be removed from office by the vice president plus a majority of the Cabinet, or by the vice president and a body established by Congress, if they determine he “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Thursday called on Vice President Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to ensure “we have a sane captain of the ship” because Trump has become “unmoored not just from his duty or even his oath, but from reality itself.” Meanwhile, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Thursday issued the strongest critique of �Trump yet from within the Cabinet. Calling Wednesday’s events “tragic and sickening,” Wolf wrote in a statement, “I implore the President and all elected officials to strongly condemn the violence that took place yesterday.” He vowed to remain in his position to ensure an orderly transition to the Biden administration. And more: Washington Post The ‘American carnage’ that Donald Trump vowed to end at the dawn of his presidency was revived in terrifying, treacherous form at its sunset Wednesday, as Trump made a fiery last stand and incited his supporters to storm and sack the U.S. Capitol as part of an attempted coup,” writes Philip Rucker. “The marauders freely roamed the building’s stately halls, some carrying Confederate flags. They occupied the Senate and House chambers and rummaged through desks. They vandalized the offices of congressional leaders. They assaulted police and other public servants. They trampled on the gleaming white platform constructed for [Biden’s] inauguration. One tried to replace the U.S. flag flying above the balcony with a Trump campaign flag. Lawmakers and staffers hid in locked bunkers. … With Wednesday’s occupation underway, Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, tweeted that the rioters were ‘American Patriots’ and urged them to be ‘peaceful.’” Some people died from medical emergencies during the riot. A woman was shot by a policeman as she tried to force her way into the Housee. At first it was reported that she was a black woman with a small baby. We were shocked and dismayed at the same time. But when the dust cleared, it was found that she was a dedicated QAnon follower, a white woman, a veteran and a strong believer in Trump and violence to achieve all ends. Take a moment to consider the difference. Last night I watched Joe Biden almost lose his temper as he articulated the difference between the police and National Guard treatment of Black Lives Matter demonstrators and Wednesday’s rioters attempting a coup. There have been reports and footage of Capitol police removing barriers to allow the rioters and looters in and even a posed selfie of a policeman and a rioter. �New York Times After the violence, Trump himself wrote on social media, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” That statement is breathtaking in its delusion. Does anyone looking on imagine for one minute that Trump actually cares about these people? He cannot function without constant gratification and reinforcement. He is psychologically incapable of dealing with failure. He cannot imagine that he has lost. In his mind, failure would be the end of his life. And he is making all of us pay for his failure - it must be OUR fault. Thus the election was rigged and he really won. It is one thing to understand deep �psychological deficits, or illness, in a patient, it is another thing entirely to see it displayed daily in the most important and influential person in the land - and to have all of us suffer the consequences of his instability. Movements are underway to apply Amendment 25 and Impeachment. Personally I favor Impeachment. It can be applied once he is out of office and it bars him from ever running for any office again. And of course, as soon as he’s out of office (12 more days), he is liable to all kinds of prosecution, as are his adult children. And everyone around the world was watching, and continues to watch. Here’s a quote from Crooked Media: Here’s the president of Zimbabwe using Wednesday’s chaos to undercut the U.S.’s credibility as a voice for democracy around the world: “Yesterday’s events showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.” He’s got a point. I was really scared and anxious on Wednesday. I know my family who all live far away are sending me love and saying it’ll be all right, but I think you don’t really appreciate something until you experience it for yourself. This day came on the heels of a year when I experienced living during a pandemic firsthand. It came after the angry mobs with guns breaking into the visitors gallery in the Michigan State House and threatening Representatives. It came after some of those same men planned to kidnap, try for crimes and execute my governor, Gretchen Whitmer. It came after every responsible, sane person in authority was threatened and harassed and had to have a security detail attached to guard them 24/7. It came after seeing pickup trucks with Trump flags and gun racks driving through my neighborhood screaming profanities. It came after regularly seeing a myriad of huge Trump flags and signs, adorning houses in the countryside. It came after the many persisting signs saying Impeach Whitmer because she overstepped her boundaries in trying (successfully) to keep us all safe and alive. It came after a year of watching our Governor and the State Health Department struggling to find the funding to cope with the pandemic because Trump washed his hands of his responsibility for the states. It came after 4 years of distress, both watching the dreadful acts and policies of Trump and losing friends who ‘ just voted for him because he believes in right to life’. Which of course is blatantly untrue. Trump’s beliefs are only one: himself. Yesterday the virus statistics were appalling. The daily death rate for the US reached 4,112 people. Just shy of filling the 5,000 seat Ford Theater. Imagine that theater with almost every seat taken up with a body bag. Now imagine the 4,112 families and friends. Our US case numbers reached 21.7M and those are just people who have been tested. And as all the experts keep saying: the virus isn’t finished with us yet. In good news (is there any Pamela?), we received notification that beginning Monday, Craig and I will be eligible to be vaccinated. And from the UK: An arthritis drug that cuts the risk of death for the sickest Covid-19 patients by 24 per cent could save thousands of lives just as the NHS starts to be overwhelmed. Tocilizumab was also found to reduce the �time that critically ill patients spent in intensive care by up to ten days, offering help to hospitals facing what the head of the health service called last night an “incredibly serious situation”. I have just enough room for Oliver. ��Let us all breathe in, and breathe out. Repeat until your heart rate returns to normal. � 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_2021-01-08_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-303 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 2021-01-08 Title A name given to the resource Day 303 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/f70e0135b709f45df5db06187aa7cb84.pdf b95797a4d718b64f67051cf66ab78b91 PDF Text Text Day 304. Saturday January 9. 176 sleeps to go. by windoworks In endless photographs, videos and selfies, America has shown its hidden face to the world. The face that is normally never looked at, the underbelly. Not the glitzy, make believe world of Hollywood, not the seamy face of crime bosses and not the face of the high flying coterie of Wall Street. No, this is the true underbelly of America. These are not struggling people living hand to mouth in trailer parks, and very few of these people are Latino, or Black or Brown. No, these are people with enough money. Enough money to travel to D.C. Enough money to buy guns and military style clothing. Enough money to look well fed and warmly clothed. And enough money to be able to leave their job temporarily and travel to D.C. to cheer Trump on and then walk willingly to the Capitol Building willing to show the elected officials a thing or two. Did they consider, in their arrogance, that there would be consequences? No of course not. Why? Because where are the consequences for Trump and the rabid Republicans who are so ready and able to turn this country into a fascist dictatorship. Politicians who refreshed their Oath of Allegiance less than a week ago. But, eventually, consequences begin to arrive. 5 people died which changes the charges that are being brought against the rioters/domestic terrorists. People who take part in these actions always forget that they are being watched. Media, that wonderful tool is not only used by individuals, its used by the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, federal police, state police and many other organizations unnamed. Already I have seen consequences at play. The person in charge of the Capitol Police is either resigning or fired. Senator Josh Hawley who pumped a fist at the rioting crowd and then raised groundless objections to the electoral votes, has lost his book contract with Simon & Schuster. I think he should lose his Senate seat next. I have seen entertaining photos of terrorists arrested. Remember the man who broke into Nancy Pelosi’s office and put his feet on her desk and stole some of her mail? He went home and shaved his beard off but they still found him and arrested him. Remember the man who stole the podium and photographed himself walking out with it under his arm? Yep, arrested and look! He put it on eBay! �He’s asking $5000 �But deeper and darker than this, are all the true domestic terrorists at the heart of this, aided and abetted by Trump and a large portion of Republicans. Trump may have agreed to a smooth transition but he will never admit that he lost. And here’s this from Washington Post: FBI looks into whether some Capitol rioters intended to harm lawmakers or take hostages Investigators are trying to determine whether some who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday intended to do more than disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Authorities are particularly interested in images of people carrying zip ties, a plastic version of handcuffs, and at least one man was arrested while allegedly carrying a pistol on the Capitol grounds. (I’ve seen the photos) From Crooked Media: Then there are the law-enforcement officers who simply participated. Some offduty cops and military members among the rioters flashed their badges as they stormed into the building, and one Capitol Police officer reportedly gave directions to rioters looking for Chuck Schumer’s office. Wednesday’s attack could have ended infinitely worse: Mob members carried zip ties with the apparent intention of taking hostages, attacked members of the press, and chanted about hanging Vice President Mike Pence for treason. None of it should have taken authorities by surprise; on Tuesday, 8kun users were openly discussing whom to kill once inside the Capitol. Regrettably, the FBI will have a chance to redeem itself on January 17, when these dipshits plan to come back for round two. But in the meantime, Twitter and other online chat platforms are well into the planning on the next event on January 17. Domestic terrorists plan to march on Congress again as well as State Houses across the country. They will be better prepared and better equipped. The House and the Senate have 8 days in which to remove Trump and penalize the sitting Republicans who supported his rhetoric. If there are no consequences then there is no democracy. How did we get here? How did it come to this? Washington Post The election lies that got us here Before a pro-Trump mob violently attacked the Capitol this week, leaving at least five people dead, President Trump spent months building a false narrative that the presidential election would be rigged. Hundreds of misleading claims and outright lies flooded the airwaves and social media, amplified by Trump supporters and media figures on Fox News and other right-wing outlets. So when Trump lost, the groundwork was ready for him to claim despite all evidence that the election was stolen. This epic disinformation campaign culminated in a deadly attack in the halls of Congress on Jan. 6, hours after Trump held a rally insisting that President-elect Joe Biden’s election was a fraud and egging on his supporters to march toward the Capitol as lawmakers and Vice President Pence were certifying Biden’s victory. �It’s a grim reminder that the truth matters — and that lies, especially from political leaders, can have devastating consequences Our database of Trump’s false and misleading claims, now updated through the date of the election, illustrates the scale of the deception: more than 1,795 bogus election claims from January 2020 through Nov. 5. The grand total for Trump is now at 29,508 false and misleading claims during his presidency. He will easily blow past 30,000 by the time his term is done, whether that’s Jan. 20 or sooner. But Nancy and Chuck are on the warpath. New York Times Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California threatened on Friday that the House could move to impeach President Trump over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol if he did not resign “immediately,” appealing to Republicans to join the push to force him from office. In a letter to members of the House, the speaker invoked the resignation of Richard M. Nixon amid the Watergate scandal, when Republicans prevailed upon the president to resign and avoid the ignominy of an impeachment, calling Mr. Trump’s actions a “horrific assault on our democracy. Today, following the president’s dangerous and seditious acts, Republicans in Congress need to follow that example and call on Trump to depart his office — immediately,” she wrote. “If the president does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action.” Ms. Pelosi also said she had spoken with Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about “preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes.” At least some Republicans appeared newly open to the possibility, which could also disqualify Mr. Trump from holding political office in the future. Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, said he would “definitely consider whatever articles they might move, because I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office. He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution — he acted against that,” Mr. Sasse said on CBS. “What he did was wicked.” And there is a groundswell of angry voices clamoring for Trump’s removal in a way that he can never hold office again. Twitter has closed his account permanently and when he tried to open a new account, they closed that too. I think he is banned from FaceBook and its affiliates. And other sites such as Parler have been shut down. Senator Lisa Murkowski (Rep. Alaska) has called on Trump to resign and says there does not seem to be a place for her in the Republican Party any more. The Republican Party does seem to have been taken over by Trumpers. And of course, as we all know, the pandemic is over. No it isn’t and in fact, the numbers are worse. Yesterday, the number of new cases in a single day rose to 300,594. Total cases reached 22M. That number �of positive cases represents over 4 times the population of New Zealand. Yesterday there were 3,895 deaths. The death total stands at 369,000. We have not seen the Christmas/New Year surge yet and of course the crowds of domestic terrorists surge effect is still about 3 weeks away. And here’s this nugget: Washington Post While public attention was fixed on the destruction at the Capitol on Wednesday, the coronavirus killed more Americans than on any other day: 3,915 deaths and more than a quarter-million new cases. Among the infected was the newly sworn-in congressman Jake LaTurner (R-Kan.), who tested positive for the virus hours after he had been on the House floor with hundreds of other members during the chaos. There are several health and hospitals systems offering vaccinations here in West Michigan but all phone lines and online calendars are swamped. Craig and I have our names down with our pharmacy, one of our health systems and Grand Valley as well as our doctors office as a last backup. We’ll see what happens. On Tuesday we have a virtual tour of our house by the international moving company to see how much furniture we can fit in a container and then on Thursday we have a furnace person coming because as everyone knows, the best time to have a leaky furnace and 3 upstairs radiators remain ice cold, is in the middle of winter. Furnaces are not cheap - and that’s all I’ll say about that. Here’s Oliver ��Today I’ll leave you with this thought: � 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_2021-01-09_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-304 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 2021-01-09 Title A name given to the resource Day 304 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/2f86bf5c21b12c8b308668a72a74d055.pdf aa49b0bd45ed74c656b6ae6032891bbe PDF Text Text Day 305 by windoworks I am running out of words, which if you know me, is a most unlikely scenario. Each day brings new revelations. Remember how I told you that people were sitting in front of stacks of computers, identifying the terrorists, face by face? They’re working 24/7 and each successful identification leads to the next, and so on. In this age and during this pandemic, IT is all. You can’t hide. Now we are beginning to get timelines of the day with all the mistakes and poor preparation exposed. I think the overriding factor was that no one could imagine this happening. And frankly, its still beyond my imagination. The phrase ‘never in my wildest dreams’ has passed my lips multiple times in the last almost 10 months. My life has assumed a surreal quality, populated by fear, grief and overriding anger. First up, I offer Heather Cox Richardson’s take. If you like her writing, she posts on FaceBook and you can join her page. January 8, 2021 (Friday) More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute. More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling. Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself. Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.Trump has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance. Here’s the irony. Trump marched up and down, behind 7 feet high sheets of bulletproof glass, raging and exhorting his rabid followers to march with him to the Congress building. But did he march with them? �No he scuttled back to the safe haven of the White House (entirely surrounded by a concrete fence and guards with dogs) and watched it all on TV. I think the danger here is of saying well that happened, now lets get back to normal life. More and more Americans are saying ‘there have to be consequences’ - and there have to be serious consequences for Trump as the fomenter. The saddest thing for me yesterday was to watch clips of world leaders commenting on the attempted insurrection. And, of course, it isn’t over. The serious domestic terrorists in the group are just getting started. Now I know every incoming President deserves that special Inauguration Day with parades and dinners and balls with everyone eager to see what gown the new First Lady will be wearing. But I am worried that Trump has sent a message to these people by saying he will not attend and Mike Pence will. As Trump has already thrown Pence under the bus, the terrorists may believe they have carte blanche to kidnap and kill as many notables as possible. They already planned to hang Mike Pence last Wednesday. NPR: The violence at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was unprecedented in modern U.S. history — but some pro-Trump extremists are promising it was just a taste of things to come. "Many of Us will return on January 19, 2021, carrying Our weapons, in support of Our nation's resolve, towhich [sic] the world will never forget!!!" one person wrote on Parler, a site friendly to right-wing extremists. "We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match." Perhaps the leading force for the terrorists/insurrectionists is QAnon. Who are they? Here’s an excerpt from an article: The Atlantic The QAnon conspiracy-theory coalition was built around President Donald Trump: Believers allege that a group of elites, a part of the “deep state,” are secretly torturing children—and Trump is working to stop them. Although the conspiracy theory has evolved beyond its original ideas, the president has remained close to the movement, and even praised its supporters. The insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol this week took part in an attack on American democracy. They also took part in a violent expression of conspiracism. What people all over the world saw and heard out of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday was a direct echo of what has been encountered in cities all over America. It was always plain that the growing QAnon movement would lead to more violence, and it came as no surprise to see so many QAnon believers in the mob. QAnon is, at its core, a pro-Trump delusion. Its disciples worship him as a savior figure, and cling to a prophecy that foretells a bloody political revolution that will give way to a mass spiritual awakening. QAnon isn’t merely a dangerous conspiracy theory. We are witnessing the birth of a new religion, one that will continue to fixate on Trump when he leaves office. And, as was made terrifyingly clear this week, we are likely closer to the beginning of its story than the end. �Though they failed to derail the certification of Electoral College votes and keep their savior in office, the worldview of believers is flexible, broad, and not going anywhere. On Instagram, QAnon talking points are used by wellness influencers, multilevel-marketing queenpins, and parenting bloggers who believe that the COVID-19 vaccine will be used as a tool of social control. I have heard ( and this may be a total fabrication) that QAnon was begun by two queer friends as a bit of a joke. But here’s what is actually known, and if you say ‘don’t be stupid, Pamela! No one could ever believe that!’ Look back at last Wednesday. If you believe that God sent Trump as a prophet and a leader (deeply flawed, but that’s okay) then it is just a hop, step and a jump to QAnon. And no matter what anyone says, like true cult followers, you can’t shake their beliefs. Remember Jonestown, where 909 true believers men, women and children died, most by drinking a soft drink laced with potassium cyanide? You couldn’t shake their beliefs either. QAnon is a disproven and discredited far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satanworshipping cannibalistic pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against US president Donald Trump, who is fighting the cabal. QAnon also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as the "Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested.No part of the conspiracy claim is based on facts. QAnon supporters have accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking government officials of being members of the cabal. They have also claimed that Trump feigned conspiracy with Russians to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the sex trafficking ring and preventing a coup d'état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros. The QAnon conspiracy theories have been amplified by Russian state-backed troll accounts on social media, as well as Russian state-backed traditional media. Wikipedia Will Trump be impeached? I think if he isn’t impeached there will no longer be consequences for appalling behavior. CBS: Mr. Trump continues to believe any impeachment talk is strictly partisan; top outside advisers keep telling him it not partisan, but institutional. Congress was under attack this week, and some Republicans feel it's necessary to push back with impeachment vote – for now and for history. He’s also wondering about pardoning himself (no one has ever done that before) and VP Pence is looking to do damage control on his own reputation. And, and this is the best bit, manufacturers have removed themselves from the Trump brand. Would now be a good time to tell everyone - you can never, ever wash the Trump stench off. It dies with you. Yesterday Craig completely cleaned out his office on the Allendale campus. It was bittersweet and he took 2 photos. My window, propped against the glass windows has been donated to the Honors College and will be properly hung by the Art Department. ��Oliver time �Eating a cookie. �Just a reminder than in all this crazy, this is still happening. Today, I’ll leave you with this: �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource COVID-19 Journals Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Libraries Description An account of the resource This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled. The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project Subject The topic of the resource Epidemics Grand Valley State University College students Personal narratives COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context COVID-19_2021-01-10_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-305 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 2021-01-10 Title A name given to the resource Day 305 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/145cb4689752ae35c2948fdf9826d3b3.pdf 5a4e3b76e01798ea2c66a84e223b8cf7 PDF Text Text Day 306 by windoworks ��We have our names down for vaccinations in various places, but I have no idea when or if it will happen. Also,there are no current statistics for today because the numbers aren’t counted on Sundays. I know, I know. I guess if you are keeping the case and death count for the government, they let you have Sundays off. What? The answer is - I have NO idea why they can’t publish the statistics every day, regardless of what day of the week it is. So what the collectors do instead, is lump Sunday and Mondays numbers together to scare the hell out of you until you remember those numbers are for 2 days together. In Boston, the numbers have gone below the red warning line for admissions and available ICU beds. I suspect this is the case around much of the country. Here in Michigan, there is no change to the current restrictions and the weather is cold, so those igloos and tiny greenhouses outside cafes and restaurants are damned cold. Not that Craig and I will be sitting in one anyway. On Friday Dr Khaldun said our numbers were plateauing out and beginning to slightly rise again. So,no real good news. On the ever present Trump front: News & Guts: While Colin Powell says he has voted for Republicans and Democrats over his lifetime, the former Secretary of State has been a member of the Republican party since 1995. But now, 26 years later, he says: “I can no longer call myself a fellow Republican. I’m not a fellow of anything right now.” �He says seeing many Republicans cozy up to Donald Trump over the last four years has caused him to leave the party. “I don’t know how he was able to attract all these people. They should have known better. But they were so taken by their political standing and none of them wanted to put themselves at political risk, they would not stand up and tell the truth or stand up and criticize him or criticize others and that’s what we need. We need people who will speak the truth…are here for our fellow citizens, they are here for our country, they are not here to simply be re-elected again.” Now here’s something you don’t see every day: WASHINGTON (AP) — In a highly unusual move, American diplomats have drafted two cables condemning President Donald Trump’s incitement of the deadly assault on the Capitol and calling for administration officials to possibly support invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Using what is known as the State Department’s “dissent channel,” career foreign and civil service officers said they fear last Wednesday’s siege may badly undermine U.S. credibility to promote and defend democratic values abroad. “Failing to publicly hold the president to account would further damage our democracy and our ability to effectively accomplish our foreign policy goals abroad,” according to the second of the two cables, which were circulated among diplomats late last week and then sent to State Department leadership. Sadly the US has already been renamed The Banana Republic by some gleeful leaders of other developing countries. Certainly leaders in these countries have been extremely vocal about the US no longer having the right to compel them to be Democratic. In 4 years, our standing as a world leader has slid further and further down. Trump has denigrated our international standing, as well as done his best to switch us from a democracy to a dictatorship. But its as though last Wednesday’s catastrophic event has shaken some of America awake. Republican members of Congress who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory, even after a mob broke into the Capitol, are being denounced by critics in their home districts who demand that they resign or be ousted. Protesters, newspaper editorial boards and local-level Democrats have urged the lawmakers to step down or for their colleagues to kick them out. The House and Senate can remove members with a two-thirds vote or censure or reprimand with a majority. Rep. Madison Cawthorn “needs to be held accountable for his seditious behavior and for the consequences resulting from said behavior,” a group of Democratic officials wrote in a letter asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to expel the North Carolina freshman who took his oath of office on Jan. 3. In St. Louis on Saturday, several hundred people protested against Sen. Josh Hawley, the first-term Missouri Republican who led efforts in the Senate to overturn Biden’s election. The protestors painted “RESIGN HAWLEY” in large yellow letters in the middle of the street. �A caravan of about 40 cars circled Sen. Ron Johnson’s office in Madison, Wisconsin, urging him to resign. Johnson initially supported Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, but after the riot, he voted in favor of Biden’s win. Johnson condemned the violence but did not back off voter fraud allegations. The editorial boards of two of Wisconsin’s biggest newspapers called for Johnson to resign, joining with editorials published across the country that targeted GOP politicians. I think the chickens are coming home to roost. This expression is similar to "what goes around, comes around" and basically means that the consequences of one's evil actions catch up in a negative way. The idea that a wrongful curse comes back to the one who curses as a "bird returns to its nest" dates back to the days of antiquity. However, it wasn't until the 19th Century that Robert Southey wrote that "curses are like a young chicken: they always come home to roost." Since then, the idea of evil men creating returns to their own door has been encapsulated in this expression. Somewhere on Google. I read quite a long article about rioters being denied boarding their flights home. They were put on a ‘no fly’ list. One man begged the authorities to let him go because it was ‘just fun’. Another man said, as he lay spreadeagled on the ground (and I’m just going to put his words here, they are breathtaking in their ingrained racism) ‘You can’t do this to me. I’m not black’. And there you have it. A huge portion of White America adheres to this deeply ingrained belief. If the rioters had been black, most of them would have been beaten, arrested and killed. Last Wednesday was a stunning display of White Privilege. It is a stain on American society broadcast around the world. It will never be forgotten and it can never be wiped away, much as the Trump stench stays on you forever. During the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year, there were times when their justifiable anger spilled over into riotous acts. We could talk about many things in these riots, but I don’t remember blood and feces being smeared on walls or statues. This did happen last Wednesday. This was (to the best of my knowledge) the actions of middle class, well off, white people, expressing their contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. At least one rioter/insurrectionist flew to Washington in their private jet. Many, many others flew on planes and shouted at perceived Liberals during their flights. Flight crew asked for those passengers to be banned - hence the no fly list consequences. Did they all think they could do this and either (a) the election would be overturned and Trump, their adored leader would remain in place for not only 4 more years but for ever, if he wanted, or (b) they would rampage through the building, scaring the shit out of everyone, perhaps take a few hostages or kill Nancy Pelosi or Mike Pence and then go home again to their everyday lives? Now, these people had disposable income and sure, some of them are trust fund babies, but the CEOs and the state representatives MUST have known there’d be consequences. They can’t have been that stupid - or wait, maybe White Privilege is stupid. Truly, anyone who thinks that the color of a person’s skin indicates their intelligence quota is obviously not very smart themselves. �And I just want to say, I was born in New Zealand and I am proud of my heritage but I will never, ever be a Kiwi. The kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand in much the same way the emu is the national bird of Australia. No one ever refers to Australians as Emus or Kangaroos which is their national animal. As I get older, I find Kiwi to be a derogatory term. I am not comparable to a large, nocturnal, flightless bird, just as Australians are not comparable to a very large flightless bird either. Trump is facing a second impeachment or an application of the 25th Amendment, or both. The end game is to strip him of any right to run for office again, anywhere. Of course, he might also go to jail - the possibilities are endless. Oh thats right. If its jail, he’ll be in there with such a lot of his fans. Won’t that be fun? So Oliver. ��So while I was touring the town of Amalfi, Craig went on a hike through the lemon groves. High above Amalfi. Thats our ship anchored offshore. �Ruins from a mining operation ��The �group. �Waterfall Under the lemon trees. �Lemon groves climbing up the hillsides. And just to make you laugh: �Stay safe, stay well and above all, stay kind. � 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_2021-01-11_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-306 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 2021-01-11 Title A name given to the resource Day 306 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/c22dacca8b19021506e799db05772558.pdf 6a26388532d378cc1d6be2a0943fc41a PDF Text Text Day 307 by windoworks Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Remember ‘all your chickens coming home to roost’? If you listen, you can hear the clucking as they waddle in. And among those chickens is an impressive number of big money funders. These big money groups, worried about their clients and customers opinions, have suspended all funding to Trump and many of the most complicit Republicans. That reminds me of the saying ‘hit them where it hurts - the hip pocket’. In a real blow to Trump’s hip pocket, the PGA 2022 Golf Championship has been removed from Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club. Oh that’s gotta hurt! The House Democrats have introduced an Article of Impeachment, charging Trump with ‘incitement of an insurrection’. And interestingly, Trump is not forming a strong defense team. Nancy Pelosi has given Mike Pence today to invoke Amendment 25 and if (as we all suspect) he doesn’t do this, then tomorrow the Impeachment will be voted forward from the House. I don’t think Trump can argue against this. Unfortunately, there is strong and irrefutable evidence of him inciting the gathering to insurrection and saying, plainly out loud: I will walk with you. Which he didn’t. He scurried back to the White House and watched it all unfold on TV, chortling with glee and rubbing his hands together in excitement. �But, there’s always a morning after. A moment in which realization hits and the participators wonder if they made a mistake, could they be held accountable, and how long will that jail sentence actually be. And here’s what everyone forgets - the internet is a great tool for finding things and people. NPR The riot at the Capitol appeared to be almost all chaos and anarchy. But as private researchers and ordinary individuals scrutinized online video and photos, they identified some of those who took part and assisted law enforcement. John Scott-Railton from Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto focused on individuals who seemed to have a real purpose amid the mob — like two men who were spotted with plastic handcuffs that could be used to detain people or take them hostage. "I kept finding footage of men wearing body armor, communicating with each other and moving with purpose," Scott-Railton told NPR. "It made me think there were people in there who had specific ideas of what they wanted to accomplish and had come prepared to execute on them." As he gathered clues, Scott-Railton put out calls for help to people he already knew, as well as strangers, creating a spontaneous army of online sleuths that numbers in the hundreds, if not the thousands. Here’s an amusing follow up to this: one of the men Scott Railton identified as holding plastic handcuffs, told the FBI (and he said this with a straight face) ‘Oh I just saw these lying on the ground and I picked them up and then I forgot I was holding them’. Yes, and the moon really is made of green cheese. And here’s how easy it is to identify perpetrators: NPR: One of the men holding the handcuffs was photographed in the Senate chamber wearing a combat helmet and body armor, which included a number of military insignias and the Texas state flag. Scott-Railton and his informal team of volunteers went to work and soon found a stream of social media that identified the man as retired Air Force Lt. Col. Larry Brock from Texas. The other man with the handcuffs — as well as an apparent can of tear gas — turned up in a photo as he was hopping over a rail. He had gone to great lengths to disguise himself, dressed head-to-toe in black camouflage. He had a black face scarf and gloves, as well as a black baseball cap that read "Black Rifle Coffee." Initially, it looked like a challenging case, Scott-Railton said. But he and his helpers found a photo of the man earlier in the day, standing next to a woman in a plaid shirt with a military vest. That led to an even earlier video at the Washington Grand Hyatt Hotel, where the man was in the same gear, with the same woman — but with his face uncovered. At that point, he was traced to his social media posts and identified as Eric Munchel from Tennessee. "Some of the pictures were pretty disturbing, including a shot of him holding a short barreled shotgun up �in the air mugging in front of a television showing President Trump," Scott-Railton said. "There were some very sharp-eyed people on Twitter who really helped surface that identity." Hot damn! You mean all those FBI type TV shows are actually accurate? There are computer nerds out there who can comb through hours of footage and find criminals and terrorists? Of course, its true people! Someone is always looking and filming and posting online. Nothing is hidden any more. Crooked Media: Two Black Capitol Police officers described enduring racist abuse during last week’s attack on the Capitol, and detailed how police leadership left them high and dry. One officer learned that violence was imminent not from his bosses, who hadn’t instructed police to bring gear like gas masks, but from an Instagram screenshot texted to him by a friend. A veteran officer said, “that was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” describing the rioters with two-way radios and bear spray in the crowd of clownish doofuses, and said rioters called him the n-word repeatedly. The outgoing Capitol Police chief, for his part, has blamed the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms (who have resigned under pressure from lawmakers), for repeatedly rejecting his requests to put the DC National Guard on standby. Ah, the finger pointing begins. And the morning after sick realization sets in. There is a gathering groundswell of outrage and anger. Most of America feels strongly that there must be consequences. From an opinion piece by Hilary Rodham Clinton: �Removing Trump from office is essential, and I believe he should be impeached. Members of Congress who joined him in subverting our democracy should resign, and those who conspired with the domestic terrorists should be expelled immediately. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy and extremism from America. There are changes elected leaders should pursue immediately, including advocating new criminal laws at the state and federal levels that hold white supremacists accountable and tracking the activities of extremists such as those who breached the Capitol. And my favorite: Crooked Media: A new ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 56 percent of Americans think Trump should be removed from office—an unprecedented level of public support this early in the impeachment process—probably because no president has ever incited a mob to murder Congress. The attack on the Capitol has proven to be one of those rare events that becomes more frightening with time: We now know that the mob was just moments away from barging into an unsecured Senate chamber with lawmakers still present, and that a lone Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, thwarted catastrophe by antagonizing the rioters and leading them away from the Senate entrance. From Maureen Dowd, an excerpt from a New York Times op-ed: In New York, Donald Trump was a corrupt Joker who took cudgels to the historic friezes on Bonwit Teller. In Washington, he became something evil. He took cudgels to history itself, to our institutions, decency and democracy. He draped his autocratic behavior in the American flag. Surrounded by Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, F.D.R., M.L.K. and monuments to our war dead, this coward whipped up a horde of conspiracists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and gullible acolytes to try to steal an election for him. He said he would march to the Capitol with them, but he didn’t, of course. He watched his insurrection on TV, like the bum that he is. So, we ask ourselves, is that it? Is that the last gasp by an outgoing and discredited “President” ? Lets face it, he never really was President, was he? He did win the title but he never really understood what it stood for. But the answer to that first question, is apparently, no, it is not it. Crooked Media: • An FBI bulletin warned that pro-Trump extremists are planning “armed protests” (we would’ve chosen a different phrase) at all 50 state capitols from January 16-20, and at the U.S. Capitol from January 17-20. State capitals have stepped up security, and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has called on DHS officials to implement heightened Inauguration security measures earlier. Parler, the app where many of those extremists organize violence and misspell common words, has been functionally dismantled after Amazon, Apple, and Google all kicked it off of their platforms. And another idea that is gaining traction and one I would get behind happily is: lets rename the White House. Yeah? The more you think about it, the more inappropriate it seems. What about a national �competition to rename it? I’ve heard The President’s Residence suggested but that seems a bit twee. Any ideas? Yesterday (and this is big news) I went online and laboriously filled out two forms to schedule appointments for our first Covid vaccinations. I’ve heard anti-vaxxers refuse to be vaccinated because they believe (wait for it) that it is a plan to microchip us all, because the GPA in everybody’s cell phones wasn’t intrusive enough. Anyway, Craig and I will be vaccinated at the Kent County Health Department on Feb 8. Not back to back because in the time it took to fill out the second form, the next 12 appointments after mine had already been taken. Well at least I got us on the same day, and I believe its free. You have to wait for 15 minutes after the shot in case you have an allergic reaction and need medical assistance. Yesterday the US reached a total of 22.7M or 23.1M covid cases depending on the analysis you follow. Deaths have reached approximately 385,000, and the experts are saying January is dreadful but February may be worse. In China they are locking down more cities as new cases are found. I hear you wailing: will this ever end? And the answer is yes, but not in the way you are hoping. And yes, the immediate future, even with the vaccine rollout does include masks and hand washing and physical distancing. Some days are 3 Oliver photo days: �Water play at �daycare �Because I can. �Bike riding is serious business �When I first began this daily dairy, I thought that would be the daily main topic. I never imagined the election would eclipse the dreadful virus news almost completely. In many ways I am not surprised at this turn of events by Trump. He showed his lack of character and moral compass deficiency during the 2016 election campaign. I never really understood his appeal - but now I do. He appeals to our basest racist selves. He offers a strengthening and increasing of White America and there are very many who welcome this. Shame on him and shame on those who support him, especially the large number of Representatives and Senators who argued against certifying the electoral votes. That’s a really deep concern we should all be worried about because that speaks to the overthrow of the democracy. Beyond here lie monsters. � 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_2021-01-12_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-307 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 2021-01-12 Title A name given to the resource Day 307 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/09aa08d148ca199ae504b9520177ffd8.pdf 7b23a72df58fed739f9c09b925641a09 PDF Text Text Day 308 by windoworks Where to start? Where to start? No, really, where to start? First of all, is Trump suffering remorse? The New York Times. President Trump on Tuesday showed no contrition or regret for instigating the mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened the lives of members of Congress and his vice president, saying that his remarks to a rally beforehand were “totally appropriate” and that the effort by Congress to impeach and convict him was “causing tremendous anger.” Uh huh. Well you didn’t expect anything else, did you? Remember I told you the FBI and other assistants were looking for participants in last Wednesday’s coup attempt? ��See? Someone is always watching and recording. I wonder how long it will take until this man is identified? And here’s what the FBI is doing. Washington Post: Justice Dept., FBI have created a sedition and conspiracy task force to pursue charges against Capitol rioters. The investigation includes counterterrorism facets. And from CNN Officials have opened more than 170 subject files and charged over 70 cases in their expansive investigation into the Capitol riot, according to yesterday's stunning Justice Department news conference. The acting US attorney in Washington said the scope of the crimes is "mind-blowing" and could include charges of sedition and conspiracy -- serious crimes that could result in up to 20 years in prison. Other officials described rioters engaging in open-handed combat with police officers and confirmed there were pipe bombs planted outside Republican and Democratic headquarters. New threats of terrorism are also rolling in ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration, including a plot described by a member of Congress in which thousands of armed extremists would surround the Capitol and prevent Democrats from entering. Meanwhile, YouTube has suspended President Trump's channel, the latest social media company to discipline the President for a post it said had incited violence. Security has ramped up at the Capitol but Republicans aren’t happy. Mask wearing is mandated with a hefty fine for non compliance and there are new metal detectors installed outside the entrances to the House and Senate floors. Why? Because so many Republicans keep guns in their offices. Who knew that? This is a firsthand account from Wednesday: NPR Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., shared a harrowing account of her experience at the U.S. Capitol last week, as she fled a violent mob of pro-Trump extremists who breached the building. "I was 1 of 12 trapped in the House gallery. I heard the shot being fired. I saw the smoke from the tear gas having been deployed," she recounted during a House rules committee meeting Tuesday. "I was in the last group to be evacuated. We ran down the halls, stairs near a mob that was being held on the ground at gunpoint. I sheltered for four to five hours in a room that was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people." She added: "While running for my life, I answered my phone to my son Christopher," she described, emotionally. "The call lasted 27 seconds. All I could say, 'Sweetheart, I'm OK. I'm running for my life,' and I hung up." There were other rooms with members packed in together sheltering. And because a large number of Republican House and Senate members ascribe to the fake news syndrome, many in these close quarters were not masked. As of yesterday evening, 3 Democratic House members who were part of the close �quarters, have tested positive for Covid. I think every Republican member who argued that the election results were fraudulent should be mandatorily tested to see who is a superspreader. Then they should have to apologize to all the members whose health was endangered. Can I just say - there’s not much “I’m sorry, I was wrong” going on, is there? Seems like this would be a good time for it. And in that vein: Move On In shocking new reports, we are learning that QAnon-supporting Congresswoman Lauren Boebert livetweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location and movements during the white supremacist attack on Capitol Hill last week, in what appears to have been an effort to help the racist mob locate the speaker. The Republicans like Boebert, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, who helped to motivate this deadly white supremacist mob to invade the Capitol, plant explosive devices, and murder a police officer, must be condemned, held accountable, and removed from office. Last night, the House voted to apply the 25th Amendment to Trump, specifying that he was no longer fit or able to govern. Of course that has to be applied by the Vice President and he said no. So now the next �move by the House is to move to impeach Trump today. And it appears that some Republican Senators are softening their stance: CNN: Impeachment The House is set to vote today to impeach President Trump for the second time. The single article of impeachment charges Trump with "incitement of insurrection" following last week's Capitol breach. With the House's Democratic majority and the votes of at least five Republican members who have said they will join the impeachment effort, the measure is certain to pass. That will make Trump the first US President to be impeached twice. Just like before, the article will then move to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has so far been silent on its prospects in his chamber, but he has indicated he believes impeaching Trump will make it easier to rid the Republican Party of his influence. The House also voted last night to approve a resolution calling for Trump to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment, but Vice President Mike Pence, whose power is needed for such a move, has made it clear he will not invoke it. Apparently there is a way to skirt around the Senate to impeach and we are all agog to see if that despicable person in the Presidents House is actually removed. As Crooked Media stays: A Clear and President Danger. While Trump and the nearly-murdered Vice President Mike Pence were reconciling in the Oval Office on Monday night, Capitol Police were briefing House Democrats on three separate potential attacks that extremists have been plotting for the coming days, including one plot to surround the Capitol and assassinate lawmakers. (Having lost access to most social media, some extremists have shifted over to the encrypted Telegram app to organize.) Security officials reminded Democrats that the purchase of a bulletproof vest is a “reimbursable expense,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly warned GOP members not to verbally attack colleagues who vote for impeachment because it could put their lives at risk. The president who already incited one armed insurrection has threatened further violence, GOP lawmakers have refused to rescind the voter fraud lies fueling it all, and Democrats have been exposed to a deadly virus by their cruel colleagues. The Republican Party is profoundly broken and a stark threat to the country; there’s no path to healing without clear-eyed recognition of that fact. And in the midst of all this, the virus is spiraling out of control, not only in the US but in other countries across the world. CNN: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced it will require a negative Covid19 test from all air passengers entering the United States starting January 26. The measure is intended to curb rising coronavirus numbers, which seem to be setting new records every day. The US yesterday recorded more than 4,300 coronavirus deaths -- a new daily high. Things are so bad in Ontario, Canada, �the province is under a stay-at-home order, and officials have warned of a total collapse of health care systems. Japan has increased its state of emergency to seven more regions, and Ireland now has the world's highest Covid-19 rate. How did it happen? Irish health officials say the seasonality of the virus, plus holiday gatherings, have led to inconceivable numbers of cases and deaths. We’re all wondering if the vaccine will make a difference to our lives. From Vox: The best way to set realistic expectations around what life will look like in 2021 is to think of it in three stages. Stage 1 is what you can safely do once you and your close friends or family are vaccinated. Stage 2 is what you can safely do once your city or state has reached herd immunity, where enough people are protected against infection that the virus can’t easily spark new outbreaks. Stage 3 is what you can do once herd immunity is reached internationally. (Note that there’s a good chance we won’t reach that last stage in 2021.) A lot will depend on the answer to a crucial open question: Are the vaccines only good at preventing symptomatic disease, or are they also good at preventing infection and transmission? “One can imagine a scenario where you are vaccinated and you develop a protective immune response. You will not get sick, you will not die, but the virus will still be able to grow in your nose and transmit to other people,” said Barry Bloom, a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard. Bloom and other experts are optimistic that the vaccines help reduce infection and transmission, but nobody knows by how much. “We just need more data on transmission,” he said. “Hopefully it will come out of the trials in a couple of months.” So here we are - good news, bad news, scary news, hopeful news. Just another day in the Pandemic. Yesterday we did a virtual tour of the house with the International Moving Company. Apparently we can fit everything we want to take with us into our container - and Craig has to stop packing boxes now please. The packers will do that - even my clothes if I wish it! That’s definitely in the good news category. Okay just enough space left for Oliver ��Yesterday during FaceTime, he got a small star sticker stuck on his hand, then on his finger, then on his tongue and actually we didn’t see where it went next, we were laughing so hard. He is so unintentionally funny and he never seems insulted by us laughing. 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_2021-01-13_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-308 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 2021-01-13 Title A name given to the resource Day 308 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/90f3dcd1fef5c7c08a5ea2cd982c6dd7.pdf 40e61bb3a27413047c1b0864fff2488f PDF Text Text Day 309. by windoworks Truth will out. One way or another, in spite of all efforts to conceal it, the truth will come to be known. In politics I think it is always prudent to remember this. Last night the House voted to impeach Trump for the second time. No other sitting President has been impeached twice. Trump then came on TV and called for calm and an end to violence. I tried to watch but I just couldn’t make myself. He didn’t take responsibility, he didn’t acknowledge his role and he didn’t recognize that Joe Biden had fairly won the election. So what else did we expect? But now, the unending sources of Trump’s wealth are slowly drying up. While he won’t acknowledge his behavior over the last 4+ years, organizations and financial institutions are withdrawing their funding and support, and more than anything that signals to the world that his behavior is completely beyond the pale. His honorary degrees from Lehigh University and Wagner College have been rescinded. But more importantly, his closest allies are deserting him. Hope Hicks, Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao (wife of Mitch McConnell) have all resigned, saying ‘I can’t be a party to this.’ Washington Post: As he watched impeachment quickly gain steam, Trump was upset generally that virtually nobody is defending him — including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, senior adviser and sonin-law Jared Kushner, economic adviser Larry Kudlow, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to a senior administration official. And here’s a signal from Europe, and you can bet this won’t happen once Biden is President. How humiliating for Trump. From Heather Cox Richardson: Trump has led the party to a major defeat and made it so reviled that it has lost the White House and the Senate, defeats for which McConnell blames the president. Indeed, the Trump administration is so reviled that today European officials took the unprecedented step of refusing to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a scheduled trip to Europe this week. He was forced to cancel his trip at the last minute. �But here’s the deeper, darker story. Last night I watched Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talk on Instagram about how she thought she was going to be killed last Wednesday. She said she couldn’t reveal details due to security but here’s this: Crooked Media: • It seems like we’ve still only caught a glimpse of what actually happened in the Capitol last week. In an Instagram Live on Tuesday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she had a “very close encounter” during the attack in which she thought she would die, but couldn’t disclose further details out of security concerns. Ocasio-Cortez said she didn’t feel safe going to the same secure location as her colleagues because of “frankly, white supremacist members of Congress,” whom she feared “would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped.” Sarah Croh, who serves as chief of staff for Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), recounted searching for the office’s panic buttons, only to discover that the whole unit had been inexplicably ripped out before the mob arrived. The panic button had been ripped out?! And there’s more: Dear MoveOn member, Last night, news broke that Republican members of Congress led leaders of the white supremacist riot on the U.S. Capitol on a "reconnaissance" tour of the building the day before the attack, apparently to make sure that they would know where to find the targets of their violence, including Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. Now, one of the leaders of the deadly insurrection has confirmed that three Republican members of Congress actively participated in planning the attack: Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks. �This news comes after QAnon Republican Lauren Boebert was caught live-tweeting Speaker Pelosi's location during the attack to help the mob find her. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that anyone who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" may not serve in Congress. These seditionists must resign or be expelled immediately, before they get anyone else killed. This is starting to get scary, very scary. Linda Christiansen: weekly update. Wednesday January 6, 2021 was a shameful day in USA history. A day when: • The President should have been concerned about COVID19 and over 350,000 American deaths along with the recent upsurge of 3,000 deaths per day… BUT INSTEAD. • the President was still obsessed with the results of our legitimate election • after weeks of his false rants and tweets, the President held a “rally” for his supporters on the day the electoral votes were counted and approved • the President’s rally cries incited his supporters to march on the Capitol to stop the verification of the electoral votes which gave the Presidency to Joe Biden • he told them to: “We never give up, we will never concede,” • his supporters once again became home-grown infidels who challenged our democracy as they did in Charlottesville 3 years ago • his rally turned into an insurgence on the Capitol and threatened our democratic government • by Thursday January 7, 2021 - 5 people would be dead and the Capitol building damaged and our democracy in danger The lessons for us are: • to ask ourselves; “Is this who we are?” • to stay vigilant • to prevent history from repeating itself (remember Hitler’s brown shirts & the Hitler youth) • to hold peaceful demonstrations • and most of all to keep voting Here’s more from Heather Cox Richardson: Today the FBI finally briefed the public on the events of January 6. Contradicting reports that said there was no sign of trouble in advance, an FBI official said that on Tuesday, the bureau warned that extremists were going to muster in Washington, D.C., to launch a “war.” Today, the bureau announced 160 case files on the insurrection and said this was just the beginning. Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin said people will be shocked about some of the things that happened inside the Capitol. He also said the Department of Justice is considering filing charges of sedition against some of the riot’s participants. �A separate briefing for House Democratic committee chairs seemed to leave them shaken by the scope of the insurgency. “This was not a peaceful protest that got out of hand,” they said in a statement. “This was an attempted coup to derail our Constitutional process and intimidate our duly elected leaders through violence.” “[W]e have grave concerns about ongoing and violent threats to our democracy. It is clear that more must be done to preempt, penetrate, and prevent deadly and seditious assaults by domestic violent extremists in the days ahead.” Very, very scary. The Capitol building is bulging with hundreds of National Guard troops who slept on the floors of the corridors last night. They slept where they lay, in full battle dress including helmets, on the cold, hard floor. I was thrilled to see them there. I’m hoping that on Inauguration Day (6 days from now), more National Guard will be standing shoulder to shoulder around the entire perimeter of the Capitol with their guns. I would be just as happy to see Joe Biden safely Inaugurated in his own living room. Its the ceremony itself, not the pomp. ���The numbers are not good. In the US we’ve reached 23.1M cases and for the second day in a row, the death rate was at over 4,000. Now I know we left any real feelings about the numbers far behind us. We mouth the words: thats terrible, unthinkable, unimaginable, but we passed shock and horror for the virus months ago. We have descended into what is. The numbers are always alarming, people’s careless behavior is no longer new and shocking and the large core of virus unbelievers is just something we no longer think about. Our world has come down to just us - how do I keep myself and my spouse safe and how do I live my small quiet life and still find some joy in each day. Soon it will be a year since I began writing this blog. So far its been 10 months I could never have imagined. Some days it is just keeping moving, one foot after the other. And as if the Pandemic wasn’t �more than I could deal with, we’ve had the added stress of the present administration culminating in a coup attempt. What will we tell our grandchildren? Because, all the while, the climate crisis is accelerating. That is another dark and distressing thought. Here’s an update from the New York Times: The new variants are scary. Scientists are still learning about new versions of the coronavirus, including variants that emerged in Britain, South Africa and Brazil. The evidence so far indicates that they “are much more infectious than the Italian strain, which has been circulating here since February. That’s a game changer. Behavior that may once have been only moderately risky — say, airplane travel — may now be more so. The variants seem to be one reason cases worldwide are spiking. Things are likely to get worse before they get better. The virus is spreading so rapidly that hospitals are struggling to keep up. About 130,000 Americans are hospitalized with Covid symptoms, more than double the number two months ago. The strain on hospitals raises the possibility that many patients will not receive the best available treatments. Los Angeles has recently had to ration oxygen. And Esteban Trejo, an executive at a company in El Paso, Texas, that provides oxygen to temporary hospitals, told Kaiser Health News, “It’s been nuts, absolutely nuts.” Yesterday, while we were watching, Oliver helped his mother put on his new sandals, he then put his sun hat on with the chinstrap under his chin and he walked to the front door and said a long sentence which we took to mean: its time to go to daycare Mummy. And then. For the first time, he said ‘Mimi ‘ to me. He attempted Grandad, but that wasn’t too clear. If I answer the FaceTime call, he points to the space beside me and asks (in Oliver speak) where’s Grandad? �That’s it for today. The furnace man is coming soon, so I have to get ready. Be safe, be careful and always be kind and considerate. � 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_2021-01-14_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-309 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 2021-01-14 Title A name given to the resource Day 309 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/7c9361093ae8f4132e2f82a0663d65fe.pdf 0f07e02798fd7c42542fe46a487b5bdd PDF Text Text Day 310 by windoworks Heather Cox Richardson: Shortly before the Senate vote on conviction almost exactly a year ago, House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) charged his Republican colleagues to look to the future, telling them, “you know you can’t trust this President to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to.” Prophetic words indeed. �Remember I told you there were National Guard soldiers sleeping on the floor in the Capitol building? Here are just some. Yesterday many Republicans refused to walk through the newly installed metal detectors, saying “you can’t make me”. Which is alarming on so many counts but mostly (for me) because it sounds like something a child or teenager would say in defiance to their parent. Have these people, duly elected by their constituency, never grown up? Are the majority of the Republican Congress still petulant teenagers? I know Trump behaves badly but is this also a large portion of the people running the country? Anyhow, the security guards are now allowed to fine representatives and senators who refuse to walk through the metal detector and then be wanded - $5000 for the first refusal, $10,000 for the second. Meanwhile, Trump’s TV speech has been analysed and apparently there may be hidden messages such as ‘our movement’. In DC, Airbnb has refunded all monies paid for the Inauguration and there is movement afoot by DC hotels to close for Inauguration Day. The National Mall will be closed to all visitors as well. Washington Post Dozens of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list came to D.C. the day of the Capitol riot. Most are suspected white supremacists. The past conduct of the suspected white supremacists so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, a massive collection of individuals flagged as potential security risks, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The presence of so many watchlisted individuals in one place �— without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s deadly assault, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. In news publications and online, there are long lists with photos of some of the more egregious characters who were at the attempted coup. One young woman reported her mother for acing badly inside the Congress. That’s pretty tough when your daughter dobbs you in, but she said she felt it was her civic duty. In the days since, participators have lost their jobs and been vilified by their communities. I can only think that they all took their cue from Trump - do whatever you like and no one will say anything, there will be no consequences. Every story that has never been told before about the Trump family members is now coming out into the public eye. There is one circulating about the Secret Service agents guarding Jared and Ivanka. They were not allowed to use any of the 6 or 7 toilets in their house, so they were forced to use the toilets in the Obama house nearby - wait, what? In the end they had to rent a toilet. I have no idea if this is true but it shows blatant white privilege. Wasn’t there a famous toilet scene in The Help? Freshman Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said failing “to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection” would send a terrible message to predominantly Black communities like the one she represents in St. Louis. “The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives,” she said. “The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief.” Thirteen months ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shushed a group of Democrats who started to cheer after the House passed the impeachment resolution. No one cheered Wednesday. In large part, this was because no one felt like celebrating. “Every one of us in this room right now could have died,” explained Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the author of the article of impeachment. Here’s a report from the Washington Post: Blinded by smoke and choking on gas and bear spray, stripped of his radio and badge, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone and his battered colleagues fought to push back rioters trying to force their way into an entrance to the U.S. Capitol. The officers had been at it for hours, unaware that others in the mob had already breached the building through different entrances. For them, the West Terrace doors — which open into a tunnel-like hallway allowing access to an area under the Rotunda — represented the last stand before the Capitol fell. “Dig in!” Fanone yelled, his voice cracking, as he and others were being struck with their own clubs and shields, ripped from their hands by rioters. “We got to get these doors shut.” And from Crooked Media ( and I find this upsetting): The handful of Republicans who actually didn’t bow to the lawless mob, meanwhile, are afraid for their lives. Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who was one of the 10 House Republicans to vote in favor of impeachment, said that he and his colleagues were buying body armor, traveling with armed escorts, and altering their daily routines: “It’s sad that we have to get to that point but our expectation is that someone �may try to kill us.” Pro-Trump loyalists like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have deftly pivoted from demanding unity from Democrats to attacking the pro-impeachment members of their own party, in calls for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to be ousted from House leadership. (House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he wouldn’t support that effort.) And now its time for the pandemic! NPR: A team of 13 World Health Organization scientists have now arrived in Wuhan, China, where they will investigate the origins of the coronavirus that has caused a global pandemic. Nearly 2 million people have died due to COVID-19, with more than 92 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University. "The experts will begin their work immediately during the 2 weeks quarantine protocol for international travelers," the WHO said Thursday. "China has repeatedly pushed back against consensus that the novel coronavirus first appeared in humans in Wuhan," NPR's Emily Feng reports from Beijing. "Officials have suggested without evidence that the virus began elsewhere, including the U.S., and was brought to China." Members of the team began the process of traveling to China more than a week ago, after discussions between the WHO, China's government and other countries the scientists would travel through on their way to Wuhan. The WHO announced the triphad begun on Jan. 5. But that same day, the international health agency was told that Chinese officials had not given final permissions for the team to arrive and begin their work. In the past week, Chinese authorities have issued stay-at-home orders and other restrictions on 11 million people in Hebei province, concerned by a recent uptick in new positive tests. And from The Atlantic: The new variant, called B.1.1.7, appears to be significantly more contagious than previous versions of the virus. It has been spreading rapidly in the U.K. and causing a huge surge in cases, hospitalizations and death. Last week, the U.K. reported a record-breaking 419,000 cases. The governments of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland issued strict lockdowns, urging people to stay inside their homes. Studies suggest the new variant increases transmissibility by about 50%. While restrictions have largely suppressed previous versions of the virus in the U.K., B.1.1.7 has continued to spread exponentially. With cases already surging in the U.S., having this new variant dominate the outbreak could be very problematic, researchers say. It could fuel another surge on top of the already staggering surge the country is struggling to stop. So just so you know, I don’t make this stuff up. And bad news seems to be all there is at the moment. We are constantly being asked to pay attention, be careful, follow guidelines. This morning on the radio, experts were suggesting that it might be time to return to ordering your groceries online or using the curbside pick up. If you spend no more than 10 minutes inside any store, that’s reasonably safe but any �longer than that is risky. Craig has developed an admirable speed shopping talent. We go through the week’s list beforehand and make sure it is in order of the aisles, and then he races around and is back in the grocery loaded car in under 15 minutes. I have a friend who has been walking laps inside her house now for about 10 months. Thats her form of exercise. She has a compromised immune system and is too nervous to walk outside. And yet, she never complains and is always cheerful when we talk on the phone. I wish I was more like her. Oliver, at last. �On Wednesday I made a picnic lunch and we drove down to Opal Beach near Saugatuck. ��It was lovely just to sit in the car and watch the waves. On days like this the lake looks more like the ocean than a lake. Although the sun was shining, the wind was cold. Ah Michigan midwinter! As I write this morning, the rain has suddenly turned to snow. That’s all folks. 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_2021-01-15_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-310 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 2021-01-15 Title A name given to the resource Day 310 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/508c8383e6e6b80fc5fd5d7ad897af8b.pdf 878c33283202bfb3032ac5486328824e PDF Text Text Day 311. Saturday January 16. 169 sleeps to go. by windoworks �It takes more energy to be afraid than it takes to be courageous. There are 4 days left until Joe Biden is inaugurated. The country is in a turmoil. Internationally we are now the proud holders of the title ‘Banana Republic.’ Other developing countries holding elections are following the tried and true policy of not conceding an election under the guise of fake new and fake voting counting. All my news sources are filled with accounts of what actually happened at the Capitol on January 6, what the insurgents plan next, what the fallout has been for Trump, and the daily total of rioters arrested and charged. The recurring theme from the FBI is: it make take us a while to get to you, but we will! Here’s one smaller group that participated on January 6: The Atlantic: In the menagerie of right-wing populist groups, the boogaloo bois stand out for their fashion, for their great love of memes, and, to put it plainly, for the incoherence of their ideology. Which is saying a lot, considering that the riot at the Capitol last Wednesday featured partisans of the long-gone country of South Vietnam, Falun Gong adherents, end-times Christians, neo-Nazis, QAnon believers, a handful of Orthodox Jews, and Daniel Boone impersonators. The boogaloos weren’t a huge presence in that mob. But according to federal officials, the attack on the Capitol has galvanized them and could inspire boogaloo violence in D.C. and around the country between now and Inauguration Day. The FBI warned earlier that boogaloos could launch attacks in state capitols this Sunday, January 17. The boogaloos don’t appear interested in fighting for Donald Trump—they tend to despise him, mostly because they think he panders to the police. But for the past year, boogaloo bois all over the United States have been cheering on the country’s breakdown, waiting for the moment when their nihilistic memes would come to life and the country would devolve into bloody chaos. It’s hard to know how seriously to take the boogaloo threat. Some are likely just joking when they “shitpost” about shooting cops or “yeeting alphabet boys”—killing government law-enforcement agents. But others seem serious. They’ve already shown up heavily armed (and in their signature Hawaiian shirts) at protests and at state capitols. They’ve allegedly killed law-enforcement officers, talked about throwing Molotov cocktails at cops during the racial-justice protests this summer, and plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. They say they want a total reset of society, even if they haven’t thought very hard about what, exactly, should come next. As the days roll by, more and more evidence is surfacing about how close the insurgents came to achieving some of their goals. One big goal was to hang VP Mike Pence for his crimes against Trump. Washington Post The violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 came perilously close to Vice President Pence, who was not evacuated from the Senate chamber for about 14 minutes after the Capitol Police reported an initial attempted breach of the complex — enough time for the marauders to rush inside the building and approach his location, according to law enforcement officials and video footage from that day. �Secret Service officers eventually spirited Pence to a room off the Senate floor with his wife and daughter after rioters began to pour into the Capitol, many loudly denouncing the vice president as a traitor as they marched through the first floor below the Senate chamber. About one minute after Pence was hustled out of the chamber, a group charged up the stairs to a secondfloor landing in the Senate, chasing a Capitol Police officer who drew them away from the Senate. Pence and his family had just ducked into a hideaway less than 100 feet from that landing, according to three people familiar with his whereabouts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. If the pro-Trump mob had arrived seconds earlier, the attackers would have been in eyesight of the vice president as he was rushed across a reception hall into the office. The proximity of the Jan. 6 mob to the vice president and the delay in evacuating him from the chamber — which have not been previously reported — raise questions about why the Secret Service did not move him earlier and underscore the jeopardy that top government leaders faced during the siege. �Look carefully: these heavily armed and outfitted men, marching up the stairs in formation. They are insurgents executing ‘Ranger File’. Detroit News Washington – As President Donald Trump’s supporters massed outside the Capitol last week and sang the national anthem, a line of men wearing olive-drab helmets and body armor trudged purposefully up the marble stairs in a single-file line, each man holding the jacket collar of the one ahead. The formation, known as “Ranger File,” is standard operating procedure for a combat team that is “stacking up” to breach a building – instantly recognizable to any U.S. soldier or Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a chilling sign that many at the vanguard of the mob that stormed the seat of American democracy either had military training or were trained by those who did. �An Associated Press review of public records, social media posts and videos shows at least 21 current or former members of the U.S. military or law enforcement have been identified as being at or near the Capitol riot, with more than a dozen others under investigation but not yet named. In many cases, those who stormed the Capitol appeared to employ tactics, body armor and technology such as two-way radio headsets that were similar to those of the very police they were confronting. Experts in homegrown extremism have warned for years about efforts by far-right militants and whitesupremacist groups to radicalize and recruit people with military and law enforcement training, and they say the Jan. 6 insurrection that left five people dead saw some of their worst fears realized. The AP’s review of hundreds of videos and photos from the insurrectionist riot shows scores of people mixed in the crowd who were wearing military-style gear, including helmets, body armor, rucksacks and two-way radios. Dozens carried canisters of bear spray, baseball bats, hockey sticks and pro-Trump flags attached to stout poles later used to bash police officers. A close examination of the group marching up the steps to help breach the Capitol shows they wore military-style patches that read “MILITIA” and “OATHKEEPER.” Others were wearing patches and insignias representing far-right militant groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and various self-styled state militias. The FBI is warning of the potential for more bloodshed. In an internal bulletin issued Sunday, the bureau warned of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, police departments in such major cities as New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston and Philadelphia announced they were investigating whether members of their agencies participated in the Capitol riot. The Philadelphia area’s transit authority is also investigating whether seven of its police officers who attended Trump’s rally in Washington broke any laws. NPR has provided a comprehensive timeline which goes right through to January 14. I have only included the timeline up to Trump’s speech on January 6. Late 2020 The Department of Homeland Security produces a threat assessment — but it is an overview, a DHS spokesperson told NPR, focusing on the "heightened threat environment during the 2020-2021 election season, including the extent to which the political transition and political polarization are contributing to the mobilization of individuals to commit violence." Late December. The New York Police Department sends a packet of material to the U.S. Capitol Police and the Washington Field Office of the FBI. This raw intelligence — bits and pieces of information scraped from various social media sites — indicates that there will likely be violence when lawmakers certify the presidential election on Jan. 6. Tuesday, January 5 The FBI Field Office in Norfolk, Va. issues an explicit warning that extremists have plans for violence the next day, as first reported by the Post. It releases its advisory report after FBI analysts find a roster of �troubling information including specific threats against members of Congress, an exchange of maps of the tunnel system under the Capitol complex, and organizational plans like setting up gathering places in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and South Carolina where extremists can meet to convoy to Washington. Wednesday, January 6 Just before noon Trump begins to address the crowd at the Ellipse, behind the White House. He falsely claims that "this election was stolen from you, from me, from the country." Trump calls on his supporters at the rally to march on the U.S. Capitol, saying he will walk with them. Instead, he returns to the White House. The House and Senate reconvened at 8pm that night and the certifying of the Electoral votes commenced. And much to my surprise and dismay, there was still arguments over the validity of the election results. Here’s a photo of all the Republican House members who deserve to be unseated due to their complicity with Trump. �Every single one should be unseated according to the Constitution of the United States of America. We are 4 days out. Huge changes have been made to the Inauguration ceremony due to credible, ongoing threats. Across America the 50 state capitol buildings have prepared for possible threats leading up to and including January 20. Trump has decided to leave the Presidents House early on January 20 and he wants a military band, a red carpet, a gun salute and who the hell cares what else. But here’s what I think: once he leaves the Presidents House he’s officially not the President any more. He can ask all he wants, but only bankruptcy and ignominy awaits him. His online merchandise has dried up, his major bank has refused to support him, his deals in New York City are no more and Mitch McConnell hopes he will fade into insignificance. And, as he won’t be protected by the presidency, he’s fair game for all legal proceedings. In a really amusing side note, Ivanka and Jared have been told they ‘need not apply’ to the swanky upscale Indian Creek Country Club near their new $30M property on an island near Miami Florida. Which just goes to show that you can’t wash the Trump stench off, ever. �And things are going from bad to worse with the virus. I read yesterday that 1 in 3 people in L.A. County are covid positive. That’s unbelievable. Washington Post: As Americans prepare for President Trump to leave the White House, they face a sickening reality: Nearly 400,000 people have died of covid-19 under his watch. His administration led a bungled response from the start, health experts have repeatedly said, for which the nation has paid a devastating price. American deaths make up 20 percent of the global toll — which just crossed 2 million — despite being just 4.25 percent of the world's population. The coronavirus is putting an early end to more than 3,000 lives per day as the country focuses on threats of more political violence in Trump's name following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. In the most alarming announcement on mutations yet, experts at the CDC said Friday that they expect the spread to get much worse. In every scenario the CDC examined, it found the highly contagious U.K. variant will become the dominant source of infections in the United States in March. The nation needs a coherent vaccination strategy now more than ever. Production at Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna is increasing enough that more than 70 percent of adults could be able to get the two-shot vaccination by the end of July. But, as we have learned, the existence of doses does not guarantee shots in arms. A promising announcement earlier this week from Operation Warp Speed — that the government would release more vaccine doses that were being held in reserve — was dashed when the group admitted to states that the reserves never existed. Officials had hoped to expand access to millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. One state health official called the revelation “extremely disturbing.” So there you have it: an ongoing attempt to overthrow the government and a disastrous pandemic - and Trump. Yesterday, Oliver went to the beach with his mother and father. ���We’ll return to our Mediterranean cruise soon, but not today. Some days lately, I just don’t have the heart for it. We’ve done the virtual walk thru with the moving company and it looks like we can get almost everything in the shipping container, including my 9 or so glass collage windows (Yay!). We have found an appreciative home for the piano and have received reassuring photos of Murphy, happy in her new home. 169 sleeps to go. Sadness is setting in. �� 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_2021-01-16_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-311 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 2021-01-16 Title A name given to the resource Day 311 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/98e57f176aea1d3b0553fb047085edbc.pdf 5ff93fc0a732ca520ed7cf0705160c2d PDF Text Text Day 312 by windoworks This morning this blog is harder to write. I keep waiting for sanity to reestablish itself, for there to be an end to all this madness. I wonder if this is what it is like to live in a war zone, never knowing where the next explosion will be. I don’t understand the vitriol shouted on FaceBook pages about our Governor Gretchen Whitmer. All she and her team have ever done is to listen to the doctors and scientists and then put sensible rules in place to keep us all safe and alive. Apparently a significant proportion of Michigan and the US would rather be free to choose sickness and possible death over restrictions. In the early days, people demonstrated because they wanted to be able to go to the hairdresser. I used to go to the nail salon every 2 weeks. I would have the polish taken off my fingernails, my nails trimmed and then a different color polish painted on my nails. It was a small luxury I enjoyed. I talked to other customers and the women working on my nails. I felt pampered. It was lovely. Once the lockdown began and all nail salons were closed, I waited as long as I could before I attempted to remove the shellac polish from my nails. I had ordered what I needed online and then I laboriously attempted to get the nail polish off. I spoke to friends who had struggled just like me. I had forgotten how to look after my nails and I vowed never to become dependent on visits to a nail salon again. My hair grew long and unruly. I trimmed bits of it and that was harder than you would think. Craig bought clippers and trimming set online and I learnt how to cut his hair. By the third time I felt as though I knew what I was doing. I don’t think he’ll ever go back to the hair salon again. When hair salons were allowed to reopen, I went cautiously back to have my hair cut. My stylist saw me very early in the morning so there was never anyone else in the salon. Since this surge I have stopped going to the hairdresser, especially after she told me that there had been a total of 4 positive cases in the salon. My hair is now longer and much more unruly than before, but I am learning to live with it. All this is a long preamble to say: I understand business owners who are struggling to stay afloat, but I don’t understand demonstrating because you want to get your hair cut. Meanwhile, Inauguration Day is just 3 days away. After being ill prepared for January 6, the authorities are gearing up to be almost over prepared. Here’s the latest from the New York Times: The nation is holding its breath as state capitals around the country brace for possible violence in the coming days. State officials are activating National Guard troops and closing off Capitol grounds in response to F.B.I. warnings that armed protesters and far-right groups are preparing to act in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday. Above, St. Paul, Minn.The moves by state officials point to the growing fear over continuing violence in the aftermath of the pro-Trump mob attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead. Law enforcement officials are vetting hundreds of potential airplane passengers and beefing up airport security. Federal officials say a militarized “green �zone” in downtown Washington is necessary to prevent an attack from domestic extremists. Such groups “pose the most likely threat” to the inauguration, according to federal intelligence groups. A man was arrested in Washington with “unauthorized” inauguration credentials, an unregistered handgun and 500 rounds of ammunition. The man, Wesley A. Beeler, said he had been working a security job and had forgotten that his firearm was in his truck. National Guard members inside the Capitol building NPR: Next week's swearing-in of President-elect Joe Biden will see the biggest security presence of any inauguration in U.S. history. For days, thousands of National Guard troops have been pouring into the capital, and by Wednesday's ceremony, up to 25,000 troops will be in place to guard against security threats. The nation's capital will look much different than it did in the days leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol building earlier this month. The area around the Capitol has been blocked off by barricades, and the National Mall is already closed to the public across its entire length — from the Capitol down to the Lincoln Memorial, 2 miles away. "We cannot allow a recurrence of the chaos and illegal activity that the United States and the world witnessed last week," Matt Miller, head of the U.S. Secret Service's Washington field office, told reporters Friday. �Troops are pouring in from all over the country. "I'm sorry I have to ask you to leave your families and head down to our nation's capital because our country is so broken right now that we have to defend the constitution," Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe reportedlytold Massachusetts National Guard troops Saturday morning. Those troops will join the thousands of camouflaged troops already in the capital, many carrying M4 rifles. And workers are installing miles worth of metal fencing to hold people back. "It looks like a military staging area because that's exactly what it is," NPR's Greg Myre told All Things Considered. To put things in perspective: Only 5,000 U.S. service members are currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. D.C. officials have warned would-be visitors to stay away and instead enjoy the inauguration virtually from their homes. It would be difficult for many to get into the city anyway, as four major bridges from Virginia will be closed from the day before until the day after the inauguration. It will also be harder for known extremists to get to Washington by plane. The Transportation Security Administration says it's vetting hundreds of names passed along by law enforcement agencies. And it has beefed up security at all three D.C.-area airports, adding more bomb-sniffing dogs, more random gate screenings and more federal air marshals. After his inaugural address, Biden will receive a presidential escort to the White House. Online chatter over the past weeks had included statements from supporters urging pro-Trump extremists to meet in D.C. and try to prevent Biden from entering the White House, but given the ubiquitous presence of troops and other security forces, such a move would prove challenging if not impossible. And Facebook has temporarily blocked people from creating any new Facebook events near the White House or Capitol through Inauguration Day. In the ‘ disturbing facts coming to light after the insurrection attempt’ category, here’s this from Crooked Media whose writers always tell us exactly how it is: • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to lead a review of security at the Capitol complex, and the Capitol Police has opened an investigation into whether any members of Congress led mob members on a pre-riot reconnaissance tour of the building last week. On Thursday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-QAnon) strenuously denied accusations that she was an insurrection tour guide, before any Democrats had actually accused her, like the guilty character in a community theater murder mystery. Could be a good place to start. • At least 28 off-duty law enforcement were in attendance at the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC, and at least 19 agencies in 13 states have since opened investigations into whether their officers violated internal policies or criminal law. Many of those officers posted about their participation on social media. A number of Black officers told reporters that it’s just the latest sign of a radicalization process they’ve been watching unfold in their departments for years, as some of their white colleagues, emboldened by Trump and protected by their unions, became more open about expressing racist views and bought into right-wing conspiracy theories. �• The investigations into the attack are likely to yield troves of awful new details, a troubling majority of Republicans still believe that Trump won the election, and right-wing threats around the Inauguration have necessitated the creation of a literal Green Zone in the nation’s capital. But an important majority of Americans understands that denying a peaceful transfer of power crossed an untouchable line, and as the insurrectionists are held appropriately accountable, that number will grow. And just to let you know that the unrest is not confined just to Washington D.C., here’s a FaceBook post yesterday from the City of Grand Rapids: In light of recent protests at State Capitols, we encourage our community to be vigilant of suspicious activity. We all have a responsibility that if we see something, we must say something. You can help by staying aware of what is happening around us and notifying authorities immediately if you note suspicious activity. Locally you can reach out to Silent Observer (or call 616.774.2345) as well as the Michigan State Police tip portal. We hope if you come across suspicious activity, you will use these tools to help keep our community safe. This next quote is just unbelievable. How did we reach this state? Oh, I know - Trump. NPR: Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., claimed during a Facebook Live broadcast Tuesday evening that some Republicans in Congress had given groups a "reconnaissance" tour of the Capitol ahead of the insurrection. Sherrill's allegations came the same night that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., addressed constituents on an Instagram Live video expressing her fear that some of her Republican colleagues would have disclosed her location during the insurrection on Jan. 6. "I myself did not even feel safe going to that extraction point, because there were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers and frankly white supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point, who I know and who I had felt would disclose my location and allow me to, who would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc.," she said. �If I think about this for too long, I get overwhelmed. Will things begin to improve once Joe and Kamala are in the Presidents House? I hope so but they have a mammoth job ahead of them - and the portion of the population who believe Trump won the election will refuse to see reason for the rest of their lives. What about the virus? I hear you ask. The US case totals stand at 24.3M (!!!!) and the deaths have reached 405,262 as of yesterday. The Atlantic A mutating coronavirus The virus is behaving as expected, James Hamblin writes. “The peril is not that the virus will suddenly �change in an extraordinary way that transforms the pandemic, but that it is changing in small, ordinary ways that are playing out on a vast scale, and whose significance we may not appreciate until it’s too late.” Well, Oliver. ��That’s it for today. Lets hope things begin to calm down. Do your part by wearing your mask properly, staying a safe distance away from others and washing your hands. And be kind. We need more kindness. � 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_2021-01-17_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-312 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 2021-01-17 Title A name given to the resource Day 312 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/d08809529b3c2b16ea45982a6c2d2e2a.pdf 152206e6d6eb1f37af2c34db43f3630f PDF Text Text Day 313 by windoworks I am sitting in the car and it is early in the morning and it is snowing. Craig is having an eye test and because they will dilate his eyes, I am his designated driver. Under normal circumstances, I would wait inside the patient waiting room with him, but because of the stringent covid conditions I am in the car with the engine running so I have some heat. Although there is no wifi available, I can use my iPhone hotspot. I have no idea how this works. This edition of a newsletter dropped into my inbox last night: Dear MoveOn member, Shocking news reports revealed last week that QAnon-supporting Congresswoman Lauren Boebert live-tweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location and movements during the white supremacist attack on Capitol Hill, in what appears to have been an effort to help the racist mob locate the speaker. We've already impeached Trump, and we are working hard to ensure the Senate convicts him. But we can't stop there. The Republicans like Boebert, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, who also helped to motivate this deadly white supremacist mob to invade the Capitol, plant explosive devices, and murder a police officer, must be condemned, held accountable, and removed from office. Every day there are new revelations about Wednesday January 6. From Washington Post: The fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative insiders and activists, documents and videos show. �The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies. The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington. It is surprising who that crowd of insurgents were on January 6. Washington Post: The radicalization of Trump supporters from all walks of life became jarringly apparent this month when a phalanx of lawyers, nurses, police officers, real estate agents and stay-at-home parents found common cause — terrorizing lawmakers for not overturning the results of a presidential election — with conspiracy mongers and violent white supremacists. Amid the throngs were a university professor, a hairdresser, a school therapist, a chief executive, a piano teacher, an Olympic gold-medalist and a state representative from West Virginia. Jenna Ryan of Frisco, Tex., flew to the rally on a private plane and posted a video from the riot where she hawked her professional services: “Y’all know who to hire for your Realtor,” she said. “Jenna Ryan for your Realtor.” (She has been arrested.) And just to show you how seriously authorities are taking the continuing threat of insurrection: WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.The massive undertaking reflects the extraordinary security concerns that have gripped Washington following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. And it underscores fears that some of the very people assigned to protect the city over the next several days could present a threat to the incoming president and other VIPs in attendance. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press on Sunday that officials are conscious of the potential threat, and he warned commanders to be on the lookout for any problems within their ranks as the inauguration approaches. So far, however, he and other leaders say they have seen no evidence of any threats, and officials said the vetting hadn’t flagged any issues that they were aware of. ”We’re continually going through the process, and taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation,” McCarthy said in an interview after he and other military leaders went through an exhaustive, three-hour security drill in preparation for Wednesday’s inauguration. He said Guard members are also getting training on how to identify potential insider threats. Last night I read a story that a woman who broke into The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi’s office, is being sought to return Nancy’s laptop that she stole. I cannot express how frightening that is. As Speaker �of the House, Nancy is in line to take over as President if something catastrophic happens. She was privy to the national security briefings and I cannot imagine what is on her laptop. I also watched a really disturbing video clip of a man photographing papers left behind in the Senate after the attending senators were hurriedly evacuated to safety. There are many details coming out now and I suspect there are many details that we will never know for security reasons. One of the details that really disturbed me was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fear that if she followed her Republican colleagues to a safe location, they would let the insurgents know where she was. She has always been a brave ballsy young woman - but not that brave! And who could blame her? I think the really disturbing aspects of January 6 were the real insurgents hidden in the crowd and the officials who assisted them - the police members, the staff members and the House and Senate Republicans. We are at such a turning point as a country. We can take this moment as a signal to begin to right the ship of state, or we can continue on this slide towards anarchy and insurrection. From CNN: A battered nation haunted by sickness, death and division is heading into an epic week in which constitutional principles will triumph over lies and insurrection with the transfer of power from one president to the next. President-elect Joe Biden's shouldering of the presidency on Wednesday will end twice-impeached Donald Trump's four-year assault on truth and tranquility and an administration awash in corruption that tested US democracy to the limit.His new team will face the gravest national challenges of any new White House in 90 years, with the pandemic running riot, nearly 400,000 citizens dead, an economy in ruins and a vaccine rollout faltering. A massive garrison of thousands of troops and security forces in Washington, DC, and the ugly scar of iron fences ringing the White House and the Capitol to protect the inauguration from violent pro-Trump mobs bear witness to Trump's legacy of incitement. There will be neither crowds thronging the National Mall nor footage of the new President and first lady waltzing at glitzy inaugural balls. The muted pageantry will underscore the mission history has assigned to the oldest President ever to be sworn into office -- that of digging his nation out of multiple crises. After four years in which Trump tore at America's racial wounds as a tool of power, there will, however, be a sense of history as California Sen. Kamala Harris becomes the first female, Black and South Asian vice president when she is sworn into office by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. �National guards and razor wire topped fences Installing the razor wire �The Capitol Building behind 7 foot fencing and guarded by National Guardsmen. And now to the virus. From Apple news: As the total number of coronavirus infections in California approaches 3 million, health officials said Sunday that a new strain — different from a highly contagious variant first identified in the United Kingdom — is popping up more frequently across the state. Researchers have identified the strain in a dozen counties and have linked it to several large outbreaks in Santa Clara County. Meanwhile, so many people have died in Los Angeles County that officials have temporarily suspended air-quality regulations that limit the number of cremations. Health officials and the L.A. County coroner requested the change because the current death rate is "more than double that of prepandemic years, leading to hospitals, funeral homes and crematoriums exceeding capacity, without the ability to process the backlog," the South Coast Air Quality Management District said Sunday. Here’s an update about the vaccines: New York Times: The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That’s on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn’t even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic. If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came �down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One. Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect — prevents disease but not infection — I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.) On Twitter, Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: “Please be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters — disease and spreading.” The risks for vaccinated people are still not zero, because almost nothing in the real world is zero risk. A tiny percentage of people may have allergic reactions. And I’ll be eager to see what the studies on postvaccination spread eventually show. But the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure. Its Oliver time. �So small. Sleeping with �Dad. �What a toothless grin! �Such a big boy now. �Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Sr. Wikipedia Today I’ll leave you with this. As Dionne Warwick sang: Keep smiling, keep shining Knowing you can always count on me, for sure That's what friends are for For good times and bad times I'll be on your side forever more So keep smiling and keep shining. � 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_2021-01-18_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-313 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 2021-01-18 Title A name given to the resource Day 313 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/dce08196c0d22868ca613617c1b0eb19.pdf e77e42a1dd6465e81559601872534c04 PDF Text Text Day 314 by windoworks As the days go by, more and more information is coming out about the sequence of events and the events themselves, on Wednesday January 6. We all knew that Trump was still insisting that the election had been stolen from him and we hoped the ratification of the electoral votes would be an anticlimax - just another step in the transition of power. At that point we hoped for a transition of power, but we didn’t expect a peaceful transition. We truly didn’t expect what happened. As I look back I remember that the riot/attempted coup/insurrection was breaking news on my iPad. For some years now, we have had streaming TV only, but January 6 was the day that I discovered I could stream a number of news channels on the TV. We watched ABC only because it came up first in the list of choices. And we sat glued to the screen for most of the afternoon. I couldn’t drag myself away. I kept thinking: where are the police? Where is the National Guard? How can this still be happening? But, as ever, journalists have been diligently sorting through all the available material and each day, more details are known than the day before. Yesterday Craig and I watched a video timeline of the event. I don’t have the link, bu here’s how you find it: �Washington Post 41 minutes of fear: A video timeline from inside the Capitol siege Remember I told you that I watched a video of the Twin Towers after the planes hit on 9/11? It was made by two brothers. I still hear the sound of the bodies hitting the pavement as people jumped from the the top floors of the burning towers. The 41 minutes of fear video is not quite as confronting as the 9/11 video, but it is shocking and distressing and it shows an America far removed from the America of my experience. I was talking with Craig the other day about the fact that in our 18 years here, we have visited every state except Alaska. I don’t know if I would feel safe to drive across America at this time. I hope this is just an unhappy period in American history but it seems to me that putting this country back in a stable and harmonious state will be the work of upcoming generations. Joe Biden will begin the work but it will far outlast his tenure as President. Here are some of the unfolding facts: New York Times It’s hard to think of another crime that the perpetrators documented so thoroughly and publicly. The people who participated in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6 posted thousands of videos of it to Parler, a social network. Journalists and other witnesses have released dozens of their own videos, too. Over the past several days, news organizations have been studying these videos and have begun releasing more details about what happened. This reconstruction work is important, because the attack was a signature moment in U.S. history: A mob, incited by the president of the United States, stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to prevent it from certifying the president’s electoral defeat. During the attack, the mob killed a police officer and went looking for members of Congress. Many of the attackers openly discussed committing violence, and lawmakers feared for their lives. “Drag them out!” one man yelled inside the Capitol, referring to lawmakers; another group chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” As the mob closed in, members of Congress hiding inside the House chamber called loved ones and told one another to remove their lapel pins so rioters could not identify them. Some rioters may have been collecting information. The New Yorker video shows a group of men rifling through Senate desks and snapping photos. One says he is looking for something to “use against these scumbags.” The F.B.I. is also investigating whether a Pennsylvania woman stole computer equipment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and intended to sell it to Russian agents. The woman turned herself in to the police yesterday. The mob felt empowered by Republican leaders. As rioters pushed their way down a hallway, one shouted at a police officer, “We are listening to your boss: Trump.” And as a few men looked through documents on the Senate floor, one, referring to Senator Ted Cruz, said: “I think Cruz would want us to do this, so I think we’re good.” �What worries me is their easy reference to sitting Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz. How did they know and believe that Ted Cruz would encourage their behavior? What else is going on that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg? As one news outlet said: the world has watched the US as the best example of democracy. Now the world is watching how a democracy dies. On one of our first visits to the States, we were in Mobile Alabama and we saw a group of people dressed in Civil War clothing, demonstrating in the middle of a grassed roundabout. I asked our guide what that was about and he said: in the South, the Civil War never ended and it was always known as the Northern War of Aggression. That was my first experience of the strong grip of fake news. The Civil War was won by the Northern States - any history text will confirm that, but deep in the heart of many Southerners, they refuse to believe it. There is literally today left of Trump’s presidency. What will happen at 12pm tomorrow when he is officially not President of the United States? Here’s one thing: Washington Post On the other side of Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency, the lawyers are waiting. Leaving aside his Senate impeachment trial, mounting government investigations include a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and a federal probe by acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin that may include Trump’s role in �the catastrophic storming of the U.S. Capitol this month. But already pending for the soon-to-be South Florida retiree is a trio of lawsuits that allege defamation, fraud and more fraud — all of which are helmed by one attorney. Roberta Kaplan’s clients include writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation case after Trump claimed she was “totally lying” about her allegation that he raped her a quarter-century ago in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, and niece Mary L. Trump, who claims that Trump and two of his siblings deprived her of an inheritance worth millions. “I became the go-to person to sue the president,” says Kaplan, 54, with considerable relish. She is in many ways the ideal legal adversary to take on Trump. Kaplan is a brash and original strategist, with neither a gift for patience nor silence, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable. Kaplan, says New York Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in an email, “has been indispensable in the fight against the cancer of hate and division that Trump spent four years exacerbating.” Before the presidency, Trump was often as engaged in legal tussles as he was in real estate, suing and threatening to sue his way out of financial trouble. With a return to private life, “his terror is that he will no longer be protected by the office and will have to deal with these lawsuits,” says his niece. Trump faces the prospect of spending considerable time in the role of defendant. Kaplan says she will seek to depose him in all three cases. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment on the cases in this story. Did I mention that the military have denied his request for a leaving ceremony? I have no idea where he will go or what he will do. I think obscurity would be terrifying for him and so thats my most fervent wish - that he and his family become discredited and disgraced and relegated to the backwaters of history. Still, he has this one last day to do as many egregious actions as possible, and there is no depth to his meanness. Biden is going to have to be very good at multitasking in the days ahead. Washington Post: Since he clinched the election in November, Biden has made clear the coronavirus and the profound economic damage it has wrought will be his central priorities until the pandemic eases its grip on life in the United States. He frequently urges people to wear masks and keep safe distances, has set a vaccination goal of 100 million shots during his first 100 days in office, and has asked Congress to approve an additional relief package of $1.9 trillion. About $20 billion of that amount would be devoted to a more assertive federal role in the mass vaccination campaign. Here’s an astonishing item that just came to light: Washington Post Five prominent anti-vaccine organizations that have been known to spread misleading information about the coronavirus received more than $850,000 in loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, raising questions about why the government is giving money to groups actively opposing its agenda and seeking to undermine public health during a critical period. �The groups that received the loans are the National Vaccine Information Center, Mercola Com Health Resources, Informed Consent Action Network, the Children’s Health Defense Co. and the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom that fights misinformation and conducted the research using public documents. The group relied on data released in early December by the Small Business Administration in response to a lawsuit from The Washington Post and other news organizations. Several of the Facebook pages of these organizations have been penalized by the social network, including being prohibited from buying advertising, for pushing misinformation about the coronavirus. In Washington D.C., they are setting out the chairs for the Inauguration Ceremony. It will all be streamed online so that most of America can watch it from the comfort of their own home - as we will. So I can report that Craig does not have a cataract problem at this stage. Good news. The Furnace man is coming this morning to paint sealant on a tiny hole in our furnace, to keep it working until they can source a new one for us. (So its not just toilet paper or building supplies that are scarce). Online teaching begins again today for Craig. This is his final semester. I think he’s a bit sad. Yesterday Oliver said “Hi Imi” to me. My friends all told me that your grandchildren call you either what they hear or what they imagine they heard and it often becomes their name for you. I was to be called Mimi but strangely enough I think I like Imi better. ��(CNN)The US has just surpassed 24 million Covid-19 cases -- and more than 60% of them have been reported since Election Day. The stunning numbers follow brutal surges in the past months -- during which the US saw hundreds of thousands of new cases daily, while Covid-19 hospitalization and death numbers reached all-time highs. And just about a year since the first Covid-19 case was reported in the US, the country's death toll is fast approaching 400,000 -- more than the number of Americans who died in World War I, the Vietnam War and the Korean War combined and nearly as many Americans who died in World War II. Tomorrow is a big day. See you 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_2021-01-19_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-314 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 2021-01-19 Title A name given to the resource Day 314 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/e33329c1687f28b30bd094dd8986df9d.pdf 943ad9edadbd783e12bce1393921dd0a PDF Text Text Day 315: Inauguration Day. by windoworks This is it. This is the day. Part of me cannot believe its here. It is 7:23am, its still dark outside and it is snowing lightly. And faintly, in the distance, I can hear the sound of many footsteps. There is a growing sound of clucking. Can you hear it? Listen hard. It is the sound of many, many chickens coming hone to roost. This is the day when the last 4 years of infamy, unvarnished greed and malice ends. This morning I watched James Corden and a large group of talented singers perform an adapted version of One More Day from Les Mis. You can find it on FaceBook, YouTube or Twitter. I found myself crying inconsolably. Craig was worried and asked me what was wrong and after a minute I said: it’ll be in my blog. So here’s what I was thinking. How did it come to this? How did we allow this country to descend into this madness in the middle of a pandemic? When was the last time that a sitting President was so (and here I am almost at a loss for words to describe Trump) irresponsible, small minded, selfish self-serving....., that a talented diverse group of performers would get together online, spend weeks rehearsing and then perform a brilliant version of One more Day to highlight the unbelievable relief that, in a few hours, anything Trump says or does as a private citizen or the litigation he will endure, will become an entertaining sideshow that all of America will be able to watch on TV, probably with popcorn. I can hardly breathe for worry that something might happen between now and 11:20am when Biden takes the Oath to become the next President of the United States. And then, after the ceremony and a drive down Pennsylvania Avenue, he will enter the forensically cleaned White House and begin working in the Oval Office immediately. One of his first actions (after gearing up FEMA and the National Guard to expand testing and vaccinations), is to put in place an 8 year track towards citizenship for Dreamers. Here’s his Day One to-do list: Immigration Foreign policy The coronavirus pandemic and health care Climate change Social and criminal justice Economic policy Tech policy And here come the chickens: �Washington Post The 147 Republican lawmakers who opposed certification of the presidential election this month have lost the support of many of their largest corporate backers. The Washington Post contacted the 30 companies that gave the most money to electionobjecting lawmakers’ campaigns through political action committees. Two-thirds, or 20 of the firms, said they have pledged to suspend some or all payments from their PACs. Some of the strongest repudiations of the Republican lawmakers came from AT&T, Comcast, Honeywell, PricewaterhouseCoopers, General Electric, KPMG and Verizon. These firms all said they would suspend donations to members of Congress who voted against certifying Joe Biden as president. Of course there are still Republicans that want to stymie Biden’s actions, but Mitch is on the job. This is his moment to push the Trump House and Senate Republicans out into the cold, to make them realize that those days are over. Good luck with that! Crooked Media:Tuesday also marked Mitch McConnell’s last ride as Senate majority leader—a very happy Got Mitch Day to you and yours. Reopening the Senate for its first day back in session since the attack on the Capitol, McConnell linked the attack directly to Trump: “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,” said a powerful person who lied about the election results until mid-December. McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met to hammer out the terms of Trump’s impeachment trial, and the Senate scrambled to hold long-delayed confirmation hearings for Biden’s cabinet nominees, only to be further obstructed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mobs). But the threat of proposed insurrection is lingering on. More from Crooked Media: After the FBI heightened vetting procedures out of concern for potential internal threats, 12 guard members were removed from inauguration duty—two of them for links to far-right extremist groups. The FBI also warned law-enforcement agencies that QAnon adherents have discussed posing as National Guard members and shared maps of vulnerable spots in DC, which means we’re about three days out from learning that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Guns) led a group on a reconnaissance tour of a military-surplus shop. Here’s a scary update on the FBI’s ongoing massive inquiry into January 6: NPR Federal investigators say they have arrested several alleged members of extremist and white supremacist groups who participated in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building. At least eight people allegedly affiliated with organizations such as The Three Percenters, The Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Texas Freedom Force, and other self-described Nazis and white �supremacists were among those who joined the thousands that stormed the U.S. Capitol building, according to federal investigators. Details of their arrests highlight how different, yet organized, extremist groups, with members throughout the country, coalesced to support Trump and his (disproven) claims that the November election was stolen. Law enforcement officials were able to track suspects down by using information gleaned from tipsters, social media posts shared by the accused, and news media coverage. So on the morning that Trump and others are scurrying out of the W.H. (I still think it should be renamed), what can we point out as Trump’s (hopefully not lasting) legacy. No matter what else he did, he raised white supremacy to the forefront of American minds; he encouraged a mindset of Me First; he denigrated Persons of Color, people with disabilities; he encouraged slander, libel and poor behavior of all kinds. He behavior showed that Freedom of Speech could be used and abused for nefarious motives. I could fill up the remainder of this post with his distressing behavior but I won’t. Like a sleeping giant, America is slowly rousing and looking around - and many citizens are dismayed by the carnage and destruction that lies around them. But wait! Here they come! THE CHICKENS ARE HERE! First up: For the People Act: Senate Democrats have now introduced S. 1, their version of the For the People Act. These nearly identical bills (House and Senate) contain a suite of policies to protect, enhance and expand democracy, according to supporters. These policies would institute national standards for expanded voting rights, create a system for publicly financed congressional elections, ban undisclosed “dark money” and forbid partisan gerrymandering. Last night, at dusk, Craig and I watched the ceremony that President-Elect Joe Biden and VicePresident Elect Kamala Harris held at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. There were 400 lights along both sides of the Pool representing the 400,000 Americans who have died since March last year. It was such a moving ceremony and of course, I cried. I cried for all those dead and gone, but I also cried for at last, a ceremony organized and performed to show this deeply divided country that this is what a leader and his team are supposed to do - listen to the citizens, recognize the triumphs and the defeats and as well as celebrating those triumphs, commiserate and recognize the defeats. This pandemic has defeated us so far. When we all ask why and how, it comes back to one person only, Citizen Trump. You can ignore every other dreadful thing he did during his presidency, but you cannot ignore his complete and utter �refusal to shoulder the responsibility of leading his country through a pandemic. He just wasn’t interested in caring. His popularity was far more important. I have no real idea how these next 4 years will go, but they have to be so much better than the last 4. At 11am this morning I will begin watching the Inauguration on TV. We have put our Biden/Harris sign back out on the front lawn and I will search through the partially packed house for something resembling a blue ribbon to tie on the front door knob. If I can’t find one, I’ll imagine its there anyway. And after the Inauguration is ended, and President Biden is in the Oval Office, I will do what my counselor told me animals do after great danger or stress is over: they sit in a safe corner and shake. They shake the stress and the anger and the fear and the grief away. Tomorrow will be a better day. � 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_2021-01-20_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-315 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 2021-01-20 Title A name given to the resource Day 315 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/2e82f00e9fd4cc03366de9c452029af1.pdf b68c041c3e57154628994ab167e4e190 PDF Text Text Day 316. by windoworks ���Ah yes. And I think Crooked Media expressed it best: Notice an unusual lightness in your chest? A strange unclenched quality to your fists? A palpable absence of malarkey wheresoever you turn? It can mean only one thing: President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., of Delaware has taken office. I began the day by watching Trump, Melania and the children all board the plane for Florida. I watched the plane disappear in the sky - just to make sure he was really gone. And just like that, it was over. Later in the morning I watched the Inauguration. I watched as the cars arrived - Joe and Jill Biden in The Beast - a car that can survive any type of attack. I watched Barack and Michelle Obama walk down the steps, George W and Laura Bush come in, Bill and Hillary Clinton too. There were so many notables. Everyone was warmly dressed for the cold day. Then it was a kaleidoscope of memorable moments - Kamala Harris sworn in as Vice President by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (Kamala’s husband will be known as the Second Gentleman). Then Joe Biden sworn in as President by John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States. �Look at that huge bible Jill is holding. President Biden then gave a great Inauguration address. And again, Crooked Media said it best: The country wasn’t magically fixed at 12:01 p.m., as viewers were reminded with every glimpse of masked attendees, National Guard troops, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett killing the vibe on the dais. But the formal beginning of the Biden era means that democracy has prevailed and profound change is already underway, because you voted for it. What a feeling. Here’s just some of what President Biden said: We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes — as my mom would say, ‘Just for a moment, stand in their shoes.’Here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever.Now we’re going to be tested. Are we going to step up? All of us? It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do. And this is certain: I promise you, we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. �And of course, there were songs: Lady Gaga sang the national anthem, Jennifer Lopez sang “This Land is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful” and lastly Garth Brooks sang “Amazing Grace” and he stopped before the final verse and asked everyone, including all of us at home watching, to sing the last verse with him. So we did. Ever notice how hard it is to sing when you’re crying? Then the new national poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, read her poem “The Hill We Climb” After that there were so many moments - one that stands out was President Biden climbing out of The Beast and he and First Lady Jill Biden and their family walking down Pennsylvania Avenue and walking into the squeaky clean White House. �As promised, President Biden got straight to work. He began in the Presidents Room and then moved to the Oval Office. NPR Below is a partial list of Biden's actions: Require the wearing of masks and social distancing in federal buildings and on federal lands by federal employees and contractors Rejoin the World Health Organization Ask federal agencies to extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums through March 31 Ask Education Department to extend federal student loan payment and interest pause through Sept. 30 Rejoin the Paris climate agreement Revoke the presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline Place a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Begin to reverse more than 100 actions Trump took to roll back environmental regulations Rescind President Trump's 1776 Commission and revoke Trump's order limiting diversity training Stop on all wall construction at the southern border �Reverse the Trump directive to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census numbers used to reapportion each state's share of congressional seats and Electoral College votes In all, he signed 17 Executive Orders. There is almost every moment of the whole day available online. By 5:30pm I was suddenly completely exhausted. The day had been a huge success and my fears of violence were unfounded. Of course, the security presence was enormous - they had covered every contingency. Later in the night we watched this: I am almost at a loss to tell you what an absolute joy it is to watch a proper White House Press Secretary. As my friend Mary Alice said (and I echo her words): Be still, my beating heart. In other celebrations: NPR The inauguration kolam project is "not just a welcoming of a new administration. It's this idea that so many people came together with all of their stories," says Sowmya Somnath, one of the organizers. �And here’s a surprising but joyful item: �NPR An art project that turned the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border into the temporary base for pink seesaws – inviting children on each side to come play together – has won the London's Design Museum award for best design of 2020. "We are totally surprised by this unexpected honor," said Ronald Rael, who designed the project with fellow architect Virginia San Fratello. They share the award, he said, with the Ciudad Juárez, Mexicobased art collective Colectivo Chopeke. �Apparently, the revelation that they may have been played has begun for QAnon: NPR: QAnon supporters believed Wednesday’s inauguration was an elaborate trap set by the former president, wherein Democrats would be rounded up and executed while Trump retained power. Various other doomsdays theorized by the QAnon community have also come and gone without incident. But unlike those past days, Biden's inauguration leaves the community with little daylight. As their predictions failed, radicalized QAnon members expressed their betrayal on messaging apps like Telegram and forums named after their failed doomsday scenario, The Great Awakening. Ron Watkins, the former administrator for the message board and QAnon hub 8kun and a major force behind false conspiracy theories surrounding the election results, seemingly capitulated, posting a note to �his more than 100,000 followers: “We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.” Some QAnon followers spent weeks preparing for a nationwide blackout starting at noon on Inauguration Day, warning friends and family in text chains and Facebook messages to buy CB radios and stock up on food. They believed Trump would announce martial law through the Emergency Broadcasting System before carrying out mass arrests. If nothing happens I will no longer believe in anything," said one supporter at the beginning of inauguration. “We all just got played,” said another, moments later. And lastly, Oliver. ��To finish, sing it with me: Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So let's sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again. � 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_2021-01-21_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-316 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 2021-01-21 Title A name given to the resource Day 316 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/2e04a3e326244bb67f7bfe5d366e23f6.pdf 5ee94dd815153f8169f301cef49a2f00 PDF Text Text Day 317 by windoworks The new day blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. Amanda Gorman “The Hill We Climb” This is the beginning of President Biden’s 100 days. I have no idea when this idea began but it seems an arbitrary and brutal judgement of an incoming president. In Biden’s case, he has inherited a country deeply divided and spinning rudderless in place. For 4 years there has been no guidance, no responsibility and absolutely no compassion. Trump and his administration have left behind the new Republican version of a scorched earth. And yet, President Biden remains optimistic and has spent the first day and a half of his presidency signing executive orders that begin the enormous task of overturning the most heinous of Trump’s actions. The Biden Administration has already restored Spanish to all government forms and changed gender designations to be all encompassing. At her first press conference, Jen Psaki made one tiny error - and then the next day she apologized. Apologized! I am overcome. Here’s more: Crooked Media • On Thursday, the Biden administration released a 200-page document outlining the centralized, federal coronavirus response we can finally have now that Jared Kushner is off trying to get into country clubs by pretending to be three kids in a trench coat. Biden signed a series of executive orders and actions to implement the plan, which includes the creation of a National Pandemic Testing Board to increase testing capacity, using the Defense Production Act to ramp up vaccination supplies, testing capacity, and PPE production, a mask mandate on public transportation, and more funding and direction for state and local officials. • Thanks to the Trump administration’s transition sabotage, Biden’s coronavirus team has only just learned the scope of the vaccination task they’ve inherited, which turns out to be less “doing some renovations on an existing structure” and more “shooing angry raccoons out of a half-dug foundation, then building a house from scratch.” Biden’s coronavirus czar Jeff Zients told reporters on Wednesday that Trump’s vaccine distribution strategy was nonexistent: “What we’re inheriting from the Trump administration is so much worse than we could have imagined. We don't have the visibility that we would hope to have into supply and allocations.” And why would this be, Pamela? I hear you asking. Because, and hear me now, Trump never cared - never, ever. And because he never cared about this country and its citizens, 74M Americans still believe the virus is a hoax and wearing a mask interferes with your personal freedom. Here’s a distressing story from The New York Times: �I took a 1,600-mile road trip this week that has left me even more amazed at how poorly the United States has handled the coronavirus — and more worried about how much work the Biden administration has to do to get it under control. I want to tell you that story this morning. I came home from my trip shaken by what I had seen. Almost everywhere I stopped — gas stations, rest stops and hotels, across Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois — there was a sign on the door saying that people had to wear masks to enter. And almost everywhere, most people ignored the sign. At a Fairfield Inn in Ohio, a middle-aged couple sat unmasked on a lobby sofa for hours, drinking beers and scrolling through their phones. The hotel staff evidently did nothing about it. At a convenience store in Indiana, a hand-drawn sign on the door read: “Face masks are required. Please do not enter without one!!” Customers did anyway. Nationwide, about half of Americans are not wearing masks when in close contact with people outside their households, according to a survey released yesterday by the University of Southern California. Wearing a mask isn’t much fun. It’s hard to speak clearly, and if you wear glasses, the fogging is annoying. But the inconvenience sure seems worth the benefits. Study after study has shown that masks reduce the virus’s spread. Yet millions of Americans have decided they would prefer more Covid — for their communities and potentially for their families and themselves — to more masks. Meanwhile, those chickens are still flooding in to roost. I’m reminded of the saying - you can run but you can’t hide. First up, Trump. Washington Post Another one of former president Donald Trump’s banks said Thursday that it is closing his accounts, as Trump returns to a business hammered by covid-19 and the backlash to Trump’s role in the deadly attack on the Capitol. “We no longer have any depository relationship with him," Bank United said Thursday. The bank declined to give a reason for its decision. The Florida-based bank had held some of Trump’s money since at least 2015, according to the former president’s financial disclosures. At the end of 2020, Trump said he had two money market accounts at Bank United, containing between $5.1 million and $25.2 million combined. The financial disclosure forms allowed Trump to list his assets in ranges, rather than exact dollar amounts. Since the Jan. 6 attack, a number of key partners, vendors and customers have cut ties with Trump’s company. That list now includes three of the four banks that held Trump’s largest deposits: Signature Bank and Professional Bank announced their decisions earlier this month. The fourth, Capital One Bank, has declined comment, saying it does not discuss current or former customer relationships. In addition, Trump has lost two real-estate brokers, an e-commerce vendor, a chance to host the 2022 PGA Championship. New York City also said it would end the Trump Organization’s contracts to run a �carousel, two ice rinks, and a golf course in city parks. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment. And thats not even mentioning the lawsuits! As for those errant Trump supporting Republicans: Washington Post Pelosi warned Thursday that some members of the House could be prosecuted if they “aided and abetted” the Jan. 6 takeover of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. “There is no question that there were members in this body who gave aid and comfort to those, with the idea that they were embracing a lie, a lie perpetrated by the president, that the election did not have legitimacy,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “There will be prosecution if they aided and abetted an insurrection in which people died,” she added. Among other things, Democrats have suggested that some of their Republican colleagues gave tours of the Capitol on Jan. 5 that could have helped with planning for storming the complex the following day. At a later news conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he believes anyone who broke the law should be prosecuted. We can talk all we want about unity and compassion and even forgiveness, but I believe that a large portion of the population (myself included) want to see meaningful consequences. All of us really want retribution but we’re all trying to be better than that. I do want to see the Senate vote to convict Trump of impeachment so he can never hold any office ever again. I do want to see the House QAnon members unseated, along with all the House Representatives and Senate members who voted to overturn the Electoral College votes. I especially want to see Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley thrown out on their ears. Ted Cruz has become silent but Josh Hawley is so supremely sure of himself, he won’t shut up. The evidence coming out is staggering. Now it appears that Michael Flynn’s brother (remember pardoned Michael?) Well, look, read it for yourself: Washington (CNN) The Army is now acknowledging that Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, was in the room for one of the key January 6 phone calls in which DC government and US Capitol Police were asking for National Guard troops to quell the unfolding violence at the US Capitol. The decision-making has come under scrutiny as city and Capitol Police officials have alleged that the Pentagon was slow to respond, while the Pentagon and Army maintain they never denied or delayed requests for the National Guard.The revelation comes as the Department of Defense is already trying to rebut accusations that it denied or delayed the deployment of additional troops as the riot worsened on Capitol Hill, eventually leaving five dead, including a Capitol Police officer. A DC official called the process of calling up more guardsmen "long" and "tortured." �I think the truth is that Charles Flynn is unfairly guilty by association, mostly because Michael Flynn made himself one of the chief agitators, telling the insurrectionists that the election of Joe Biden was a lie. And this is a problem that President Biden can do nothing about. It is so entrenched that along with covid being a hoax, people will die believing these dreadful lies. I’m sure you’ve all read many many articles about these lies and the ongoing effect on the present administration and the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. It just amazes me that in the face of all the evidence, people still won’t believe the truth. Remember how I reported that severely ill patients in Intensive Care, on a respirator, would not say goodbye to their families because they refused to believe they had covid (How could they - it was a hoax, right?) and they died believing they didn’t have covid and they weren’t dying. They died still believing the lie. You can’t climb over that belief. It is too tightly ingrained. My news feed is full of positive stories of President Biden and his administration, who are soldiering on regardless. The hill they have to climb is steep, but the team surrounding the President are competent, talented, able and willing. This morning a man is coming to look at our failing boiler (its winter, of course its failing) and give us a quote and we are having the first Zoom meeting with our realtor. Our path is set and we are moving towards returning to our families, far across the world. And no, I haven’t forgotten - Oliver. ��The new day blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be 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_2021-01-22_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-317 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 2021-01-22 Title A name given to the resource Day 317 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/3c694a5b2e83959fae49a6a9961d94e7.pdf e41593b1c6298fc4291bc25b8b2786ec PDF Text Text Day 318. Saturday January 23. 162 sleeps to go. by windoworks ��These are the proposed rules for easing of restrictions here in Michigan. In the US we have reached 24.9M cases which is over one quarter of the total global cases (96.2). The death toll for the US has reached 414,000 - well on track to reach 500,000 by March. To give you some idea of that number - Atlanta, Georgia has a population of 515,000. So imagine most of Atlanta’s population gone by March this year. And just in case you thought we were making our way out of the woods, here’s a sobering piece from CNBC: LONDON —There is “some evidence” a new Covid variant first identified in the U.K. could be more deadly than the original strain, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday. “We’ve been informed today that in addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant — the variant that was first discovered in London and the southeast (of England) — may be associated with a higher degree of mortality,” Johnson told a news conference. He added that all the evidence suggests the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford University, the two currently being used in the U.K., remain effective against both the old and new variants of the virus. The evidence is still at a preliminary stage and it’s being assessed by the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, which advises the British government. The variant, known as B.1.1.7, has an unusually high number of mutations and was already associated with a more efficient and rapid transmission.Scientists first detected this mutation in September. It has since been found in at least 44 countries, including the U.S., which has reported its presence in 12 states. Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the modeled trajectory of the variant in the United States “exhibits rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March.” Speaking alongside Johnson on Friday, the U.K.’s chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, said there is now early evidence that there’s an increased risk for those who have the new variant, compared with the old virus. President Biden has put some much needed orders in place but his administration is still coming to terms with the fact that they were not going to amend and improve the Trump’s administration vaccine roll out program - there was no program at all! No program at all. None. Added to that, when offered more vaccine supplies last year, Trump demurred , and those supplies went elsewhere in the world. I continue to be staggered by Trump’s actions, as much as I continue to be aghast at the actions of his cult members. Now, Biden has implemented a mask mandate on all forms of public transport as well as in all federal facilities. Of course, in the Capitol Building in D.C. where they installed walk through metal detectors, they had to also cordon off both sides of each scanner, as Republicans were refusing to walk through and were going around the detectors. Because they’re special and they don’t want their concealed weapons taken off them. �How can you have any sort of reasonable discussion with people who feel strongly that the rules that apply to everyone don’t actually apply to them? Here’s a little something from Crooked Media: In a shocking affront to the very idea of unity, Democrats have announced that they won’t simply pretend that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is still in charge, even after he specifically asked them to. • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have confirmed that the House will transmit the article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday, though the trial won’t start until the week of February 8. McConnell had asked for a longer delay to give Trump’s legal team more time to prepare, presumably by paging through the many statements from Capitol rioters citing Trump’s words as their motivation for rioting and mumbling “hoo boy” with increasing hopelessness. No word yet on how long the trial will last, whether the Senate will be able to conduct other business while it’s ongoing, or how McConnell will vote—but it’s looking unlikely that 17 GOP senators are ready to step back from the brink and convict Trump of inciting insurrection. • Schumer also announced on Friday that he will reject McConnell’s demand for unchecked power to veto Biden’s agenda, correctly calling it “unacceptable.” Meanwhile, Senate Democrats continued to recklessly hinder national healing by (checks notes) implementing the agenda that 81 million Americans voted for, drafting legislation that would expand the child tax credit by sending recurring monthly payments (totaling at least $3000 per kid, per year) to tens of millions of families. Unlike the stimulus checks, the Biden administration hopes to make those payments a permanent government program lasting beyond this year. How much of an uphill battle will it be for President Biden? Here’s some thoughts from an opinion piece by David Brooks, a columnist with The New York Times. Most calls to “national unity” are vacuous pap. They are unrealistic, kumbaya pleas to “come together” around nothing. But, as Richard Hughes Gibson wrote this week in The Hedgehog Review, the best calls to national unity are arguments. They are aggressive calls to come together around a specific idea of America, a specific national project. From Biden’s Inaugural address: Here is the thing about life: There is no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days you need a hand; there are other days when we are called to lend a hand. Over the last years, politics was about everything except actual governance. Under Trump, partisanship was about personal identity, class resentment, religious affiliation, racial prejudice and cultural animosity. Biden is a genius at separating politics from the culture wars. He’s been a genius at sidestepping the Trump circus, including the hullabaloo it arouses on the left. We have endured an age of affective polarization, when we didn’t disagree more, we just hated each other more. Under Biden, the emotional temperature �will go down. People believe lies because of motivated reasoning. Under Biden the motivation will go down. Frankly, we need more political apathy in this country. Will he be able to pass this sort of sweeping legislation? I have far from given up hope. Everyday, I read that Republicans will never go for these spending plans, and I always want to ask the writer: Have you noticed that Republicans have already voted for roughly $3 trillion in new spending over the last 10 months? Do not underestimate how divided and confused their party is right now. Do not underestimate how much Republicans trust Biden personally. I was shocked by how moved I was by the Biden inaugural. We’ve been through an emotional hailstorm over four years. Suddenly the sky has cleared. It’s possible America may emerge from this trauma more transformed than we can imagine. Speaking for myself, I do not understand why a large portion of the population feel that rules and regulations do not apply to them. I can never understand what makes these people so special that they don’t have to follow the rules. Are these rules and regulations so invasive that they would rather contract the virus than put up with some inconveniences? Last night, a student from a class last year wrote to Craig and said despite all her careful behavior, she contracted the virus and has had to quarantine herself from her mother - in the house she moved back to, to keep herself safe. I am reminded of that saying I posted some months ago: some of us are sheltering under the largest umbrella we could find while others are dancing recklessly in the rain and seemly staying dry. I wonder if there shouldn’t be a certification of proper mask wearing to be displayed before a vaccine shot is given. If you think the virus is a hoax - well okay. More vaccine shots for us! In New South Wales, Australia they have a daily update (even on Sundays). Each day they announce the new cases (or lack thereof) and speak about the ongoing cases and whether they’re in the ICU or just in a hospital ward. Then they ask everyone, every day, to get a free test even if they have the mildest of symptoms. Each day the spokesperson reminds everyone that once tested, you must remain in isolation at home until a negative test result is secured. And here’s the clincher: in almost a year, New South Wales has recorded less than 5,000 cases in a population of 7.5M. How unthinkable is that? Here in Kent County (pop: 657,000) we currently have 48,204 positive cases and 627 deaths. I know its like comparing apples and oranges, but still. Oliver went to the beach and did some rock scrambling. Be still, my beating heart said Craig, his rock scrambling grandfather. ����Yesterday we did a virtual tour of our house with our realtor. A very informative and agreeable Zoom call. Earlier in the day, the furnace guy came and inspected our failing furnace and promised to install a better, more efficient furnace for 0h about $10,000 or so. Well I have to have heat in the winter, and hopefully it’ll be a great selling point for the house, along with the brand new hot water heater installed 6 months ago - because everything breaks down during a pandemic. We have paid the deposit to the moving company and they sent out loads of paperwork including safe covid rules for movers and home owners. Of course. Because everything is that much harder in a pandemic. Now I just had to post this because it made me laugh. �And although I laughed, I have seen enough Bernie memes to last me a lifetime. Move on, people. � 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_2021-01-23_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-318 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 2021-01-23 Title A name given to the resource Day 318 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/6da48949f644fd9de91198f545a16b76.pdf 3e8ccb167902384b863f54858e8f77b4 PDF Text Text Day 319. by windoworks Well this pandemic diary has gone on for much longer than I anticipated - and it appears to be stretching into the future. I began writing about life in a pandemic and at first I thought I would never be able to survive the self -imposed restrictions on my lifestyle. This morning an astounding amount of time has passed by: it is almost 46 weeks or over 10 months since my personal pandemic journey began. And a common thread throughout, each time I thought of doing something outside of my safe bubble - I would get excited but then I would think: no, I’m not comfortable doing that. I was talking to a friend yesterday and she said that she and her husband have perhaps ruined eating restaurant food. Meals have become a very important part of her day (as it is for Craig and I) and both of us have gradually adjusted our diets to cope with new dietary restrictions. For my friend it is much less salt and sugar. For Craig and I it is gluten, diary and soy free and making former store bought treats from scratch. During the cold weather I have been communicating with friends by phone but lately I have slipped up on that. It seems that as time goes by it gets harder and harder to stay in touch. And its not just me either, but a collective feeling of withdrawal. It is odd and worrying to me to see my families in New Zealand and Australia eating in groups in restaurants and going to clubs and bars. These are unthinkable activities to me and even though cafes and restaurants will reopen under restrictions on February 1, neither Craig nor I can imagine eating out again. It is becoming apparent that conquering this pandemic may take so much longer than we want. National Geographic AS COVID-19 CONTINUES to run its course, the likeliest long-term outcome is that the virus SARS-CoV2 becomes endemic in large swaths of the world, constantly circulating among the human population but causing fewer cases of severe disease. Eventually—years or even decades in the future—COVID-19 could transition into a mild childhood illness, like the four endemic human coronaviruses that contribute to the common cold. “My guess is, enough people will get it and enough people will get the vaccine to reduce person-to-person transmission,” says Paul Duprex, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Vaccine Research. “There will be pockets of people who won’t take [the vaccines], there will be localized outbreaks, but it will become one of the ‘regular’ coronaviruses.” But this transition won’t happen overnight. Experts say that SARS-CoV-2’s exact post-pandemic trajectory will depend on three major factors: how long humans retain immunity to the virus, how quickly the virus evolves, and how widely older populations become immune during the pandemic itself. Depending on how these three factors shake out, the world could be facing several years of a halting postpandemic transition—one marked by continued viral evolution, localized outbreaks, and possibly multiple rounds of updated vaccinations. “People have got to realize, this is not going to go away,” says Roy Anderson, an infectious disease �epidemiologist at Imperial College London. “We’re going to be able to manage it because of modern medicine and vaccines, but it’s not something that will just vanish out of the window.” All this just confirms that our lives will never be the same again. We have to learn to live in the long term with Covid and its required restrictions. On another subject: Trump. Hear all those extra chickens clucking towards Trump, now that he’s not the President? Here’s an opinion piece from George T Conway (of The Lincoln Project): Washington Post From the earliest days of his administration, it became painfully apparent that in all matters — including affairs of state — Trump’s personal well-being took top priority. Four years and two impeachments later, he has managed to avoid the full consequences of his conduct. But now that run of legal good fortune may end. Trump departed the White House a possible — many would say probable, provable — criminal, one who has left a sordid trail of potential and actual misconduct that remains to be fully investigated. A desperate fear of criminal indictment may even explain Trump’s willingness to break any number of laws to stay in office despite losing his reelection bid, democracy and the Constitution be damned. He considered unfathomable measures such as declaring martial law and having the military somehow “rerun” the election. He risked further potential criminal exposure with his appalling — and, unbeknown to him, taped — conversation with Georgia’s secretary of state, during which he threateningly demanded that the official “find” enough votes for him to win the state, and by pressuring a Georgia elections investigator to “find the fraud” that didn’t exist. And then, as the clock wound down on his time in office, he committed the ultimate impeachable offense for a president: fomenting a violent attempted putsch at the Capitol to stop Congress from confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Prosecutors and jurors may have to decide whether it’s also a crime. Private citizen Trump stands stripped of the legal and practical protections against prosecution that he enjoyed during his tenure: constitutional immunity; a protective attorney general; a special counsel operating under self-imposed and external constraints; and the ability to invoke the presidency in litigation, even meritless litigation, to delay state prosecutors’ investigations. No longer will he be able to claim interference with his public duties, or to remove those who might allow damaging investigations to proceed. Even before he incited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Trump had amassed an impressive slate of potential criminal acts — from before his presidency and during. His life amounts to a virtual issuespotting exercise for any student studying criminal law. The laundry list of potential crimes is the product of the brazenness of Trump’s behavior over decades. Trump’s modus operandi has been to do whatever he considers necessary in the moment and thinks he can get away with. It worked for far too long. Trump has managed to avoid serious legal repercussions — �not just during his four years as president, but throughout his life. Trump’s presidency has ended. So, too, must his ability to dodge the consequences. This next piece articulates my belief that American Presidents are not only the current Commander-inChief but also the chief example of how to behave when holding a position of enormous responsibility. Sometimes I felt that I was the only one who recognized that by his example, he gave the citizens of America permission to follow his example and behave just as badly. It became: if the President can do it, so can I. And so many people jumped in the boat with him, including an astonishing number of elected officials. The Atlantic: Trump used his maleness in roughly the same way that he used his whiteness: as permission. And he turned his own entitlements into a gaudy sales pitch. Part of Trump’s promise to voters, in 2016 and again in 2020, was that they might be liberated not by his virtues, but by his vices. They, too, might be spared the inconvenience of obligation to other people. They, too, could be free to indulge their wants with impunity. They, too, could engage in cruelty and rebrand it as a proud stance against political correctness. They could call themselves patriots—not because they sacrificed for a common cause, but because they understood that the worst thing one can be, in this world, is a pussy. One of the most shameful legacies of Trump’s presidency will be his failure to control the coronavirus pandemic; one core element of that failure has been his framing of mask wearing—a simple, inexpensive, and effective way to slow the spread of the virus—as a front in America’s culture wars. That reinterpretation, too, was an extension of Trump’s worldview. It falsely pitted personal freedom against the collective good. It elevated �an extremely mild inconvenience—the wearing of a face mask—into an alleged infringement of Americans’ rights. It ratified one of the basest assumptions of Trumpism: that freedom is, in its essence, manly. And that the common good, by contrast, carries the stain of femininity. Patriot or pussy. That false choice is killing people. So, undeterred, Trump is forging on: In recent weeks, Trump has entertained the idea of creating a third party, called the Patriot Party, and instructed his aides to prepare election challenges to lawmakers who crossed him in the final weeks in office, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (RAlaska) and Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), according to people familiar with the plans. Multiple people in Trump’s orbit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, say Trump has told people that the third-party threat gives him leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during the Senate impeachment trial. Trump advisers also say they plan to recruit opposing primary candidates and commission polling next week in districts of targeted lawmakers. Trump has more than $70 million in campaign cash banked to fund his political efforts, these people say. �But what he keeps ignoring, is the twin threats: impeachment and lots and lots of litigation. Can we just start the lawsuits and the Impeachment trial now, please? I’ve got my popcorn ready. Meanwhile, our new President has done a Herculean job of overturning Trump’s more offensive executive orders and he is working hard on issues close to most Americans hearts, such as unemployment relief, vaccine distribution, immigration and so on. When does that man sleep? In an entirely different subject, here’s a photo of my glass collage triptych windows beautifully installed in my friends Pamela and Jack’s house. I just couldn’t be prouder. ��These windows depict the balloon festival over Albuquerque. There is a balloon on the left rising up as the dawn breaks. Oliver ��As I was agreeing with my friend yesterday, our children had very boring lives until they went to school. Four days a week Oliver has painting and cooking, and water play and lots of toys and puzzles and balls and bikes of all kinds to ride on. He is taught colors and textures and numbers and words and action songs. Each of those four days he comes home, shattered with fatigue and each of those four nights he sleeps soundly - sometimes for 12 hours straight. He knows nothing of pandemics and politics and he thinks Mummy sometimes wearing a mask is normal. He knows we are the little people on Mummy’s phone and he starts saying Hi before we answer. If the connection drops out he cries and if Craig isn’t there he points and asks repeatedly (in Oliver speak) where is Grandad? At the end of our conversation we always sing, sometimes up to three songs with him. He provides the actions and then he knows its time to say ByeBye and blow us some kisses. He’s adorable. I am tired of the pandemic and the crazy cult members. I try to have hope and confidence in the future, my future. And I try to do as my mother said and “Rise above it dear, rise above it”. I’ll leave you with this very last Bernie meme. � 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_2021-01-24_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-319 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 2021-01-24 Title A name given to the resource Day 319 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/df4b574f528b73086c682cad0d5ebd66.pdf e58be1bfa3502f9a5910317391bc061e PDF Text Text Day 320 by windoworks Sea change (noun): a profound or notable transformation. Why am I posting this? Because that’s what I think is happening right now. I think this is the moment when we can only go forward, we can’t go back. We have seen what happens when a sitting President tries to reestablish public acceptance of racism, white supremacy, gender inequality, misogyny. In the beginning of Trump’s reign, there was an ugly awakening. People began to think ‘If he can act that way or say that phrase, then I can too. He’s the president and if the president can do that, I can too’. And all those horrible unspoken thoughts were now expressed, loudly and nastily. Next came actions, bold, in your face, actions. And a large portion of America said Thank God. Now I don’t have to pretend any more! That large portion showed their true faces and their true faces were ugly. People who had been friends for decades were torn apart when one friend made the assumption that racial slurs and the like were acceptable in their everyday conversation. And why? Because Trump does it and he’s the President. I am continually upset by the comments that follow an update report on FaceBook by my Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Now, of course, there are a large number of responses which say thank you for looking after us and keeping us safe, but sometimes those positive responses are outnumbered by the others. Responses which have nothing to do with the topic of the post but are just an excuse to use the rights that have been freely given by Trump. The right to denigrate, abuse, harass and threaten. Because they are following the gold standard set by Trump. But, Trump is gone and lawsuits and the impeachment trial are all beginning soon. Trump has relocated to Mar-A-Lago in Florida and is experiencing many ‘friends’ deserting him and the club. He is trying to shout about forming a 3rd political party ‘The Patriots’. He is threatening Republicans from the sidelines, that those not faithful to him will be replaced. He is going to use the $70M campaign funds he obtained under false pretenses from his gullible cult members (unless, of course, various banks claim that money as partial reimbursement for their heavy Trump losses). But, the chickens are home to stay, and the sea change is just beginning. President Biden is steadfastly rolling back the damaging orders put in place by Trump. He has surrounded himself with a team of talented, diverse, well educated and the leaders in their fields. One absolute qualification for each team member: to always tell the truth and freely admit mistakes. I watch Dr Fauci talk: freely and happily, with no fear of being fired. I read articles of (hopefully) all police chiefs across America investigating and rooting out racism and gender inequality in their ranks. The new Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has already instigated an investigation into racism and inequality in all military ranks. �Here’s some of what the Biden Administration has done so far: �President Biden and his administration are working at light speed. If some Trump appointees who were asked to resign their posts refused, they were fired. And in the meantime there is a huge groundswell of demands for all sitting Republicans who signed the amicus brief to overturn the election results, to be expelled form the House or the Senate. Its hard to ignore the growing number of affronted Americans demanding this edition. A sea change sweeps all before it and leaves the bitterly entrenched flopping like stranded fish on the shore. Some politicians are still saying stupid and nonsensical statements, not realizing that Trump’s day is done and that mode of behavior is no longer acceptable. I’ll name some so you can watch out for them and know they are pissing in the wind: Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Rand Paul. They are behaving this way because they think it will increase their chances of being elected President in 2024. What they forget are two things: a sea change and, a week in politics is a long time - 4 years in politics is an unthinkably long time. Just as I am writing, this pops into my newsfeed: Washington Post: Voting machine firm Dominion files defamation lawsuit seeking $1.3 billion from Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former president Trump. The lawsuit, citing dozens of Giuliani's statements, accuses him of repeatedly lying about Dominion Voting Systems and its voting machines in an effort to promote the "Big Lie" that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Hear the chickens settling on their roosts and clucking contentedly? They’re here to stay. �Above, a mass vaccination site in Glendale, Arizona. To the virus and the vaccine: The newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Sunday that the federal government remains in the dark about just how much vaccine is currently available and warned that states like New York won't be able to quickly replenish its limited supply, NBC News reports. “One of the biggest problems right now is I can't tell you how much vaccine we have, and if I can't tell it to you then I can't tell it to the governors and I can't tell it to the state health officials," Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. Well that’s depressing and we are still 2 weeks out from our first shot. Here’s some more news: CBS News The U.S. has surpassed 25 million cases of COVID-19, according to data reported by Johns Hopkins University. News of the milestone comes days after President Joe Biden kicked off his efforts to combat the pandemic, signing a stack of COVID-related executive orders during his first day in office. The U.S., which has about 4% of the world's population, has reported over a quarter of the world's COVID-19 cases. As of Sunday morning, the disease had killed more than 417,000 people in the U.S. Globally, there have been nearly 99 million reported cases. The U.S. has reported the most cases and the �largest number of deaths of any country. India — with a population four times larger than the U.S. — trails the U.S. with the second-highest case count, reporting more than 10.6 million cases of COVID-19. Mr. Biden has prioritized the pandemic during his first days in office, and his team aims to speed up the delivery of vaccines and protective equipment. Administration officials acknowledged that their goals are largely contingent on Congress, which would need to pass the Biden team's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the newly installed CDC director, told Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation" last week that by the middle of February, there could be half a million deaths in the U.S. "I think we still have some dark weeks ahead," Walensky said. I participated in a Facebook poll yesterday, which asked if I would eat out after February 1 when restaurants can reopen for limited in-house dining. I said no and then I read the numbers - 95 yes and 1400+ no. That says it all really. Here’s this reality check for us all from the New York Times The coronavirus pandemic in the United States has raged almost uncontrollably for so long that even if millions of people are vaccinated, millions more will still be infected and become ill unless people continue to wear masks and maintain social distancing measures until midsummer or later, according to a new model by scientists at Columbia University. The arrival of highly effective vaccines in December lifted hopes that they would eventually slow or stop the spread of the disease through the rest of the population. But vaccines alone are not enough, the model shows. And if precautions like working remotely, limiting travel and wearing masks are relaxed too soon, it could mean millions more infections and thousands more deaths. There is no doubt that getting vaccinated protects the recipient. Still, several infectious-disease researchers contacted by The New York Times cautioned that it would be months before enough people in the United States will have gotten the shots to allow for normal life to begin again. Only then will the number of people with immunity — those who have had the disease and recovered, plus those who have been vaccinated — be large enough to take the wind out of the pandemic, said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia who shared his team’s modeling calculations. Dr. Shaman estimates that more than 105 million people have already been infected across the U.S., well above the number of cases that have been reported. And his projections show millions more infections are yet to come as the vaccine rolls out. So, protest and complain all you want, but that’s what the scientists are telling us and now we have to accept that all those years of study, research and passing hard exams means they actually do know what they are talking about. Just a reminder: TrumpWorld is permanently closed and there is no refund on your tickets. �Its Oliver time. He is sticker mad and the appliances in Zoe’s kitchen are now suitably adorned but she won’t let him sticker her cell phone. ��Running �is such fun! I have tried to live my life according to another one of my mother’s frequent admonitions: If you can’t say something nice, its better to not say anything at all. I have tried. Same old, same old: mask up, wash your hands and 6 feet apart. � 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_2021-01-25_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-320 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 2021-01-25 Title A name given to the resource Day 320 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/b4d4d3068ede1f6aa3b7555fdab4d567.pdf 1d68a905584cdb2adf2c9570283086a4 PDF Text Text Day 321 by windoworks Being midwinter, its snowing. Meanwhile, along with Trump’s impeachment trial and the everlasting pandemic, now a new topic has entered our lives: the climate crisis. Because when we’ve shown how adept we are at coping with 2 major crises, why not add a third? But this is serious business. Trump refused to believe in the climate crisis, following the age old method of putting your head in the sand. (This comes from the supposed habit of ostriches hiding when faced with attack by predators. The story was first recorded by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, who suggested that ostriches hide their heads in bushes. Ostriches don't hide, either in bushes or sand, although they do sometimes lie on the ground to make themselves inconspicuous. The 'burying their head in the sand' myth is likely to have originated from people observing them lowering their heads when feeding). With the advent of the vaccines, people have been talking about life returning to normal. Not so fast, people. New York Times But what does normal even mean anymore? It’s easy to forget that 2020 gave us not just the pandemic, but also the West Coast’s worst fire season, as well as the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record. And, while we were otherwise distracted, 2020 also offered up near-record lows in Arctic sea ice, possible evidence of significant methane release from Arctic permafrost and the Arctic Ocean, huge wildfires in both the Amazon and the Arctic, shattered heat records (2020 rivaled 2016 for the hottest year on record), bleached coral reefs, the collapse of the last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic, and increasing odds that the global climate system has passed the point where feedback dynamics take over and the window of possibility for preventing catastrophe closes. Meanwhile, the earth’s climate seems to be changing faster than expected. Take the intensifying slowdown in the North Atlantic current, a global warming side effect made famous by the film “The Day After Tomorrow.” According to the climatologist Michael Mann, “We are 50 years to 100 years ahead of schedule with the slowdown of this ocean circulation pattern, relative to what the models predict … The more observations we get, the more sophisticated our models become, the more we’re learning that things can happen faster, and with a greater magnitude, than we predicted just years ago.” In 2019, the Greenland ice sheet briefly reached daily melt rates predicted in what were once considered worst-case scenarios for 2060 to 2080. Recent research indicates that rapidly thawing permafrost may release twice as much carbon dioxide and methane than previously thought, which is pretty bad news, because other recent research shows very cold Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years earlier than expected. As the pandemic has worn on, the desire to get back to normal has increased, and the hope for radical �positive change has subsided. But we must not let it dissipate. We can’t afford to. Because we won’t see “normal” again in our lifetimes. Well thats depressing and challenging. My youngest child, Asher, and I had a long discussion about this 2 years ago while driving around Oregon. He continues to be very concerned about the climate crisis. I asked him what Oliver’s generation will do and he said that they would find new ways of coping - such as living underground. As I write this, the East Coast of Australia is experiencing its first heatwave of the summer. On a side note: Craig and I are investigating buying a house in the Blue Mountains (just outside Sydney). It is a beautiful bushy mountainous area with the caveat of being in the bushfire zone. We’ll have to choose carefully. Impeachment: here’s some notes from my favorite: Crooked Media. Impeachment has hit the Senate, federal coup enablers are under investigation, and Rudy Giuliani’s buttdialing days are numbered now that he’s getting his ass sued off: We’ve entered Accountability Season, and shockingly, Republicans want no part of it. • Republicans might regret requesting an extra two weeks before disingenuously declaring Trump innocent, as whole new episodes of his attempted coup continue to spill out into the open. The Justice Department’s inspector general has announced an investigation into whether any current or former department officials tried to help overturn the election. That announcement came just days after the New York Times broke the bananapants Tale of Two Jeffreys: Trump had schemed to oust then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer who had “spent a lot of time reading on the internet” (huge red flag) and wanted to use the department to force Georgia lawmakers to overturn the state’s election results. If you were wondering: Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving Democratic senator, will preside over Trump’s impeachment trial. (The Constitution specifies that the chief justice preside over the trial of a sitting president. It does not give clear guidance on who should oversee those for others.) New York Times. �And just in case you believed the insurrectionists were operating in a vacuum, also from Crooked Media: • German intelligence officials are concerned that the Capitol riots will further radicalize far-right extremists in Europe. Far-right extremists around the world have been connecting online for years, and even traveling to meet each other and train together in person. Many of them in Europe saw the violence on January 6 as both a symbolic victory for their shared, racist cause, and a strategic defeat they could learn from. German authorities immediately tightened security around the parliament building in Berlin in the wake of the attack, and while no concrete plans have been detected in Germany, officials there are concerned about both a strengthening of international far-right networks since January 6, and neo-Nazis’ current volatile state: “a dangerous mix of elation that the rioters made it as far as they did and frustration that it didn’t lead to a civil war or coup.” Now its time for the pandemic. First up, the worry that the mutations might not be quelled by the vaccines on offer. But here’s reassuring news from The Atlantic: Will the vaccines work against the mutated coronavirus strains? Our staff writer Sarah Zhang reports: In a word, yes. But in a few more words: There are three separate variants of major interest right now, first �detected in the U.K., South Africa, and Brazil, respectively. The more transmissible U.K. variant doesn’t seem to affect the efficacy of the vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna at all. But the South Africa and Brazil variants share a trio of particularly worrisome mutations. Data today from Moderna suggest that vaccine-induced antibodies are not able to bind the South Africa variant as well as they do the usual virus—but they still work well enough to be protective. That’s because the vaccine normally stimulates many times more antibodies than the minimum necessary to protect against the virus. Out of prudence, though, Moderna is looking into how an additional shot of its vaccine or an updated booster based on the South Africa strain could protect against waning immunity, especially in the long term as the virus continues to evolve. But for now, the most important thing is to keep vaccinating as fast as we can. Salisbury Cathedral in England functions as a vaccination center.Tom Jamieson for The New York Times Are we ready for the next pandemic? And yes, scientists are reasonably sure there will be more. NPR How to make sure the world is never so devastated by another pandemic? �Health officials from around the globe have been vigorously discussing that question over the past week at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization's Executive Board. The members, whose nine-daylong, mostly virtual gathering concludes on Tuesday, have heard recommendations from four separate panels. While the conversations have been wide-ranging, common themes keep emerging: Time for fundamental change The pandemic's toll of more than 2 million reported deaths and worldwide economic and social dislocation was not inevitable, said many speakers. It was the direct result of a failure to prepare adequately for a pandemic threat despite years of warnings that better preparation was necessary. The need for speed Much of that reset will involve vastly increasing the pace at which individual nations and global organizations like the WHO assess incoming threats and take action. As Clark put it, "The international system for alert and response has the trappings of an analog system in a digital age." Money matters To maintain a truly robust system of disease detection and response will take money, of course. But many speakers said that just as important as getting together an adequate amount of funds is ensuring that this funding stream is reliable. Why this pandemic could be the one that finally prompts action Even as they made recommendations, many speakers seemed mindful of how many previous efforts to prepare the world for pandemics have failed. With every new pandemic or other major health threat, there are many evaluations which come up with dozens of recommendations. They are nearly too numerous to count, and too few of them have been acted on. The group expressed hope that the sheer magnitude of the crisis this time could make the difference. This is a unique opportunity born out of the gravity of this crisis, to reset the system. Just a footnote here: we are now included in the World Health Organization again. Yippee! This morning we ask ourselves: do travel restrictions work? President Biden has imposed new travel restrictions from countries dealing with new mutations of the virus. Here’s some thoughts from the New York Times: One of the biggest lessons of the pandemic has been the success of travel restrictions at reducing its spread. And this is a moment when they have the potential to be particularly effective in the U.S., given the emergence of even more dangerous coronavirus variants in other countries. President Biden seems to realize this, and has reinstated some travel restrictions that President Donald Trump lifted just before leaving office. It’s not yet clear whether Biden will impose the kind of strict rules that have worked best elsewhere. So far, he has chosen a middle ground between Trump’s approach and the approaches with the best global track record. �Many of the places that have contained the virus have relied on travel restrictions. The list includes Australia, Ghana, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Canada’s four Atlantic provinces. At key points, they imposed severe restrictions on who could enter. There is a crucial word in that sentence: severe. Travel bans work only when countries don’t allow a lot of exceptions. Barring citizens of other countries while freely allowing your own citizens to return, for example, is ineffectual. “Viruses don’t care what passport you carry,” my colleague Donald G. McNeil Jr., who’s been covering infectious diseases since the 1990s, told me. Voluntary quarantines generally don’t work either, since many people don’t adhere to them. Some take mild precautions and still describe themselves as “quarantining.” As Donald says: “For it to work, it has to be mandatory — and actually enforced. And not at home.” Australia crushed the spread of the virus in the spring partly by ending its voluntary quarantine and requiring all arrivals, including Australian citizens, to spend two weeks in a hotel. The military then helped enforce the rules. China and some other Asian countries took similar steps. In eastern Canada, tough entry rules were “one of the most successful things we’ve done,” Dr. Susan Kirkland, a Nova Scotia official, has said.Travel bans had such a big effect, Dr. Jared Baeten, a prominent epidemiologist, told me last year, that public-health experts should re-examine their longtime skepticism of them. “Travel,” he said, “is the hallmark of the spread of this virus around the world.” At this point in time, even if we are fully vaccinated, we are not confident that we won’t have to quarantine in Australia in early July. We are mentally prepared, however. Oliver! How do you cope in a heatwave? Take off all your clothes and sit in the paddling pool. ��To end today. I offer this from National Geographic: Greening the mosque: In a packed city, how can a community garden together? Maybe on a roof. This “farm” in Jakarta, Indonesia began in the early weeks of a COVID-19 outbreak. On the fourth floor of a mosque, the garden has produced various vegetables for local consumption and for sale. Photographer Muhammad Fadli, on assignment for a story on food security and the pandemic, says the profits will go to the mosque’s welfare fund and to feed the farmers’ families. � 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_2021-01-26_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-321 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 2021-01-26 Title A name given to the resource Day 321 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/c303f47c4dad4377a95de0f48da589e5.pdf 896c4e8a67f5f716eaa6deb827feb813 PDF Text Text Day 322 by windoworks The world around me is changing. Organizations and companies are recognizing that this virus is here in some form for the long haul, and even if this one is subdued and contained, there is always the prospect of the next virus - which might be worse. This morning Craig read an article about a cruise line which had been bought out by an independent company. I wonder about cruising. At the very least, all crew and passengers would have to be fully vaccinated to be allowed onboard. So that takes care of the ship population. But the bigger problem is the ports and the shore excursions. There is risk involved for both the passengers and the local population. How is that solved? I saw that a European cruising company undertook a short cruise last year which ended up being even shorter after a passenger tested positive for the coronavirus. I am surrounded by businesses that are struggling to survive. The most successful are those food providers who have adapted quickly to curbside pickup with limited outside dining. Some eateries have maintained and expanded their daily online presence. A few restaurants have set up a weekly take out menus. Everyone has tried to find that magic formula which enables them to survive. Our local yarn store has finally decided to close. The truth is, that for many people like me, the only option is online shopping. If Craig (the designated shopper) can’t find it in his carefully scheduled visits to the grocery store, then I order it online. I even have a folder in my mail app for online orders so I can keep track of what I have ordered. And to be frank, there isn’t anything I can’t order online. Clothes (including underwear), shoes, hair products, bathroom supplies, make up, jigsaw puzzles, grill pans, curtains, quilts my list is endless. Once I learnt how to return incorrectly sized items and to recognize my proper size for each clothing and shoe outlet - I was ready. Do I miss going to stores and ‘browsing’? Yes. Does shopping online make me feel safe? Yes. Do I feel constrained? Yes - but safer. Downtown in Grand Rapids there is a large convention center. Before the virus, Grand Rapids was such a popular convention destination, that there were plans in place to build a second convention center. Recently, the DeVos Convention Center was refurbished as a large vaccination center and yesterday the first people were vaccinated. The entire converted space was not opened up yet, as just like every other state, the available vaccine supplies are limited. However, help is on the way. Washington Post Federal allocations of coronavirus vaccine to states and other jurisdictions are expected to increase by about 16 percent next week, easing shortages that have intensified nationwide without fully alleviating supply problems. Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House’s covid-19 response, is expected to inform governors of the increase on a call Tuesday afternoon, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on �the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. The weekly allocation is forecast to go from about 8.6 million doses to about 10 million doses. The vaccine is distributed on a population basis among 64 jurisdictions, including 50 states, eight territories and six major cities. Zients is expected to stipulate that the increased supply will come from releasing more doses of Moderna’s vaccine — one of two authorized for emergency use in the United States. At this point, we are 12 days out from receiving our first shot and I am hoping we will still get it. I have heard of people having their vaccination deferred - scary thought. So the Notice of Impeachment was delivered to the Senate on Monday night and the trial is set to begin on Tuesday February 9. A number of Republicans have said lets just vote to acquit him now, because that worked so well before. We told you he wouldn’t ever do anything egregious again. Okay so, how do they explain the attempted coup? And by the way, apparently there is another coup/insurrection planned fro March 5. I’ve looked up March 5 on my calendar and apart from the fact its a Friday, I can’t find any other significance. The Republican Senators asked for the 2 week delay in the trial beginning because they �thought it would Trump time to find a lawyer (obviously Giuliani’s out), and they thought the public would have lost interest by then. Oh, and to give President Biden time to have hearings for his cabinet appointments. But what they didn’t think about was, this gap gives reporters and investigators time to publish more and more details of of what happened and who incited it and who abetted it. NPR: Another impeachment manager, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, says he thinks the case for convicting Trump in the Senate trial will become stronger in the days ahead. "As the days go on, more and more evidence comes out about the president's involvement in the incitement of this insurrection, the incitement of this riot, and also his dereliction of duty once it was going on," he told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Castro said he's "confident" the case will be strong enough to convince GOP senators who haven't yet indicated how they'll vote on a conviction. "I would hope that, first of all, they keep their powder dry, that they listen to all the evidence and wait for the case to be presented," he said. "But most of all, at the end of the day, what we need is for people to put country over person, in other words, over Donald Trump and also country over party, Republican or Democrat." And here’s something unnerving: Washington Post The commander of the D.C. National Guard said the Pentagon restricted his authority ahead of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, requiring higher level sign-off to respond that cost time as the events that day spiraled out of control. Local commanders typically have the power to take military action on their own to save lives or prevent significant property damage in an urgent situation when there isn’t enough time to obtain approval from headquarters. But Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, said the Pentagon essentially took that power and other authorities away from him ahead of a pro-Trump protest on Jan. 6. That meant he couldn’t immediately roll out troops when he received a panicked phone call from the Capitol Police chief warning that rioters were about to enter the U.S. Capitol. All military commanders normally have immediate response authority to protect property, life, and in my case, federal functions — federal property and life,” Walker said in an interview. “But in this instance I did not have that authority.” Walker and former Army secretary Ryan D. McCarthy are set to brief the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday behind closed doors about the events, the beginning of what is likely to become a robust congressional inquiry into the preparations for a rally that devolved into a riot at the Capitol, leaving five people dead and representing a significant security failure. Wait! Is that more chickens moving in? �FB post Amazing assessment…"Now, Biden is inheriting a nation where many people may simply refuse to recognize him as president; he is facing down an army of spoiled, well-off white people so convinced of their own importance that even a lawful government or the peaceful transfer of power matters less to them than getting their own way. When those people see Biden sworn in as president, they are seeing many things: the humiliation of Trump, the rising threat of “woke” culture, an impermissible ascent to power for Black or female or LGBTQ+ or Jewish people (though Biden is none of those things), or a conspiracy to eat babies. Most importantly, though, they are seeing that someone told them no." And to me, that is the most important thing. NO. Because just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. NO. Just in case it wasn’t clear the first 100 times - NO. Here’s more: Move On: Robert Reich Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are enemies of democracy, and they must not remain in Congress. Democracy cannot abide lawless lawmakers. I've been in or around politics for over a half-century now. The current Republican Party is the most treacherous, corrupt, and cult-like institution that I have ever encountered. The Biden presidency marks a new beginning, but we dare not minimize, forget, or dismiss the calamity of the last several weeks—or the last four years. Unity does not mean letting the instigators of an attempted government coup off the hook. Among a myriad of other actions, President Biden found time to call Putin: White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden called Vladimir Putin and discussed a number of topics, including Ukrainian sovereignty, the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, reports of Russian bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan and interference in the 2020 election. “His intention was also to make clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of our national interests in response to malign actions by Russia,” Psaki said. All right! And he also did this: Washington Post President Biden is scheduled to take executive actions as early as Thursday to reopen federal marketplaces selling Affordable Care Act health plans and to lower recent barriers to joining Medicaid. The orders will be Biden’s first steps since taking office to help Americans gain health insurance, a prominent campaign goal that has assumed escalating significance as the pandemic has dramatized the need for affordable health care — and deprived millions of Americans coverage as they have lost jobs in the economic fallout. Under one order, HealthCare.gov, the online insurance marketplace for Americans who cannot get �affordable coverage through their jobs, will swiftly reopen for at least a few months, according to several individuals inside and outside the administration familiar with the plans. Ordinarily, signing up for such coverage is tightly restricted outside a six-week period late each year. During Biden’s campaign I received a questionnaire from him 4 times. Each time he asked what were my biggest concerns - and now he’s acting on all those points that recipients answered. That’s impressive. So the virus is mutating. There are 3 known mutations and there seems there will be more going forward. Washington Post New coronavirus variants emerge constantly in populations in most of the world's corners as global cases surpass 100 million. A few of those, if they can hitchhike in travelers' bodies, make it across international borders. One, first detected as it churned through a Brazilian city, was just found in a nasal swab from a Minnesota resident. That person — the first known U.S. case of this variant — had traveled to Brazil and remains in isolation, authorities said. Precisely what the Brazil variant and others mean for transmission is still being investigated. But it's likely the U.K. variant, which is the best-studied, is more contagious. Facing that strain, the U.K. has embarked on a real-world experiment with its vaccines. Its government will delay booster shots to extend the supply. The wait between doses could lengthen to 12 weeks — up to four times the period in clinical trials. Drug makers are aware of the pressure new variants place on vaccines. The companies are working to ensure when vaccines are pitted against variants, the inoculations win. From a liberated Dr Fauci (that man won’t stop smiling): wear 2 masks in crowded places, pharmacies, doctor’s offices, grocery stores. 2 masks are needed with these more contagious variants. One person from each family in a grocery store and remember, no browsing. It is time to consider what the future might look like. We can’t return to life as it was. This morning I read an excellent article in The New Yorker titled: Has the pandemic transformed the office forever? The short answer seemed to be yes. It was just too long for me to extract excerpts but its worth a read. It also speaks to how life will be going forward. In many countries, very different. Even in successful countries such as Australia and New Zealand, they are struggling with how and when to open the countries up to visitors again. It seems as soon as you subdue the virus - it flares up again. So will it ever end? Everything I have read says no. It will be with us, hopefully to a lesser extent, forever. I know, I know. Deep breath. Here’s Oliver. �With Great Uncle Drew eating vegemite toast downstairs in the cafe. Look! New sandals. Yesterday when we FaceTimed, Oliver had a temperature and didn’t care to speak to us. Zoe thought about taking him to her doctor - but children with temperatures have to be covid tested before the doctor will see them. If he is no better today, she will take him to the hospital less than a block from her apartment. There they will test him and then they’ll examine him. See? Living with covid in the future. Here’s a Bernie nod to Michigan - both the upper and lower peninsulas are referred to as ‘hands’. �And this last item is the updated AllSides media bias chart. For your information. �Double mask up, people. � 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_2021-01-27_BenjaminPamela_PD-Day-322 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 2021-01-27 Title A name given to the resource Day 322 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