Too many of us are going to be affected directly or indirectly by COVID-19. I personally know four people that contracted the virus, had symptoms, and recovered although it took time. Unfortunately, the mother of a childhood friend died. I expect these numbers will increase, and I am not OK with that, but unfortunately not enough people share that same point of view. The United States of America is the only country in the world that puts perceived liberties over the reality of life and thinks it is better than every other country in the world. It’s not patriotic or christian, it’s hubris.
I am pondering the automatic keyboard lighting of the Apple iPad Magic Keyboard, which is based on ambient lighting and seems to be similar to the lighting adjustment on phones and tablets. Right now I am using the keyboard in a very well lit room and therefore I don’t need the keyboard on maximum brightness, but it is and that seems to align to phone screen brightness. You want phone screen brightness to increase outdoors so that you can read the screen, but it seems to me the backlighting of a physical keyboard should be the exact opposite, near zero in bright light, to save battery, and increase in brightness in darker rooms.
I think that despite the analysis of the election around urban/rural and college educated/uneducated the common denominator is jobs. In the United States today it’s nearly a given that in order for one to get a good paying job they must have a college degree. It also happens that those jobs are in urban areas. Further, while in the past there were plenty of good paying jobs in manufacturing that didn’t require college degrees, we manufacture less in the U.S. than before so an increasing majority of jobs not requiring degrees are in services. Service industries don’t pay high wages and are dependent on many external factors, which is why COVID has been so devastating to people in the U.S.
I don’t see one solution to the problem, the solution is a combination of decreasing the cost of getting a college degree, increasing existing service industry wages, and somehow increasing manufacturing in the United States. We must seek out and agree upon the incentives for doing each.
I have difficulty squaring what happens under the banner of “religious liberty” in the United States and how Jesus lived and what Jesus taught. See Matthew 23.
How to Think for Yourself is a good essay by Paul Graham. It makes me wonder where I fit.
Bishop backs SCOTUS ruling: Spiritual health is important
I understand the argument made that the government can’t make restrictions on churches that they don’t make on secular institutions. But when I listened to the above and heard the Bishop state that they only allow 25 to 30 people in to a church designed to hold 500 to 1000 people I wonder, how do they decide on which 25 to 30 can get in?
The “so-what” attitude that so many seem to have toward COVID seems to me to be very much like one who is addicted, by which I mean one is unable to heed advice that is in their best interests. It is very much like the reactions to gun violence. I think Anne Wilson Schaef writes of this in When Society Becomes an Addict.
Bacon scented beer, sure, why not?
First Impressions Of The Apple iPad Magic Keyboard
I ordered an open box / reduced price Apple Magic keyboard from Best Buy that I just received. Normally I don’t order refurbished items, but I felt an accessory like a keyboard ought to be safe, and after combining the reduced price with some credit card reward points I got $100 reduced on the price.
There isn’t much to the unboxing, cut through the shrink wrap, open the box and all you find is the keyboard inside. I was surprised, given that this was a refurb, that the “standard” protected plastic wrap was on the keyboard.
There is literally no documentation in the box, I’ve had to use Google to learn about some of the standard keyboard shortcuts given that there is no function key row.
I am sitting on a couch with the keyboard with iPad on my lap, typing as I would using any notebook computer. The keyboard is smaller, which is not a surprise given that this is the 11-inch model, but still, I can touch type just fine.
A few things to figure out. There is one function key, a key labeled with a globe at the lower left, that seems to be for selecting emojis, surely there is a way to change that? So far I haven’t found one, although I have found some articles of useful information that I summarize below.
- Tips from MacRumors
- To see a list of keyboard shortcuts in an app, hold down the cmd key. Source: Business Insider
- Computerworld has a bunch of tips
Don’t know who needs to hear this today. Self Love to Group Love to Universal Love — A Homily by Fr. Richard Rohr
Looks like Comcast is going to reinstate the data caps next year. I was wondering when they were coming back. I was struggling to manage the cap at the beginning of 2020 before COVID hit and Comcast stopped them.
Discovered WindowSwap and I again am reminded of the awesomeness of the Internet. Equally good as screaming in Iceland.
Damage Done
The coup has been in progress for four years, and probably even for more years than that. It most recently started with an assault on facts, starting with the numbers of people who did not attend President Trump’s inauguration, continued through three years of assaulting the press, nearly one year of an assault on science and medicine, and now with the assault on the heart of democracy, the election.
The risk is not who will be seated as President on January 21, 2021. The damage has already been done, going forward all elections will likely be questioned probably until someone comes up with the bright idea of just not having them.
All of this is on the hands of Republicans. To those who say Trump has the right to have his day “in court” I say, when did elections become about courts? There is a phrase, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. Do you not see the damage you are doing to our country? For now on tens of millions of people will no longer trust elections because you continue to sow the seed of doubt, and for what? So that you can retain power? Did Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson fight for power? Did Lincoln give his life for power or did he do it to preserve the Republic? The party of Lincoln indeed.
Here is a fact. What is common between Nixon and Trump is that they are both Republican. One resigned before being impeached and then pardoned, the other was impeached and could still be pardoned. The two most undemocratic Presidents of my lifetime, Republicans.
And finally, to those Regan Republicans, most of whom are of my generation. The USSR had elections, in fact most socialist dictatorships have elections. In the USSR (and now Russia) the outcome of the election was assured before the first vote cast because the person in power could not lose. What makes democratic elections, such as the ones we claim to have in the United States, is that the person in power (the incumbent) can lose. It’s not just about a peaceful transition of power, it’s about accepting the will of the people.
Republican actions right now are saying loudly, they do not accept the will of the people, and in doing they delegitimize their claim as a party of a free and democratic United States of America.
I accidentally bought fat free half and half, which I think by definition is skim milk. It’s not doing the job in my coffee.
Over the years we have seen chipmunks, squirrels, and a few robins looking in to our condo, but this is a first.
It seems to me that another fundamental to our democracy is the fact that a person can lose an election. Buried in Trump’s claims of election fraud is the idea that he couldn’t lose so because he did it must be illegit. It’s like Putin going into his “elections' knowing he will win, except at least this time in the United States Trump does not have Putin’s style measures in place to create no doubt about the outcome. In the Unitied States anyone running for office who thinks they cannot lose demonstrates their lack of knowledge or unwillingness to accept the very thing that makes America great! The very thing that makes Trump dangerous is that he sees himself as an autocrat, and such a person should never come close to holding the office.
The temperature outside is well above the normal of 47 degrees for this date and might exceed the record of 67 degrees. However, snow is on the forecast for Sunday, but today we enjoy the warm 🌞.
One of the neat things about autumn is seeing things otherwise hidden like these wild flowers that are growing within the shrubs that line the sidewalk to our condo.
Party of family values, patriarchy, personal responsibility, and moralism chafes at the idea of obedience.