Immunization Story

 The CDC came out last week and had this interesting statistic.

Roughly 7,150 people have had the full Covid-19 vaccination (both shots, if required), and developed Covid-19 after the immune period started.  Yes, they had Covid-19 anyway.

Roughly.....60 percent of the group....were women (if that statistic mattered).

Out of this 7,150 group.....around 500 of them required hospitalization.  We aren't saying that they had ventilator treatment, but they did go into the hospital because it was serious enough.

So then you come to the dismal issue to deal with....88 of these folks died (yes, even with the immunization deal).

Now, you can ask a bunch of questions here, and it's not clear from the CDC.  Some folks might have entered the hospital because of Covid and their age, then got some kind of staph infection and died more so from that crappy hygiene business than the Covid.

Or these folks in the hospital might have been fairly aggravated, and had some kind of heart attack, and thus died more so from that, than the Covid.

So, should immunization really make you feel happy?  These days, with all the ban-rules and hyped-up sensitivity of people......you kinda need something (even an imaginary immunization situation)....to pep you up.  

What'll happen as we emerge in 2022, and you kinda figure out that Covid hyped-up feelings just linger around and nothing much improved?  I think the news folks will stop talking about it, and start looking for something 'new' to hype people upon.  Maybe alien UFOs....maybe Caitlyn Jenner (the trans person) as the new GOP governor of California....or discussing the 12 steps that President fell down when exiting Air Force One. 

Three Things I'd Do Differently With the Police

 1.  Upon arriving at any situation which is suggested to be possibly violent....I'd mandate the police pull out the pistol and fire three rounds in the air to get everyone's attention.  From that point on.....if you aren't laying on the ground, you get whatever you deserve from the 'mess'.

2.  Any cop showing unreasonable 'roughness' in handling prisoners....gets onto a database which can be seen by any city or state hiring the guy in the future for police duties.  The idea that you could be a stupid cop with the tendency of roughing up people, and just keep moving around to new jobs every three years....needs to stop.

3.  End all police patrols at sundown.  Let everyone know the limitations, and allow them to be fully armed from sundown to sun-up.  In the first year....a ton of 'bad-boys' will be buried, and you will notice a lessening of assaults and robbery after a year or two.  

Aiming Story

 I sat this morning and watched a press conference from Columbus, Ohio....with the shooting business.....where the reporter asked the police chief: Why can't you train your cops to just shoot people in the leg?

I sat there.....mostly amused and paused at that point....replaying the question five or six times.

A couple of years ago....there was this action-TV series....'Person of Interest', where the chief 'good-guy' always shot the bad guys in the leg, hip or thigh.  Out of a hundred episodes....I think he must have shot 250 folks....all in the leg or hip.  Far as I know....he never killed anyone.

Generally, in  the Air Force training....both with the M-9 pistol and the M-16 rifle....you get a person 'target' and they kinda train you to aim for the chest.  The idea of a leg shot?  Well....you might have to fire ten rounds....to get the wound that put the guy down.  Firing that many rounds....the odds are in favor of you hitting a second, third or fourth person in the landscape.....so it's not a wise strategy.

It would be curious if the reporter would go and sign up for shooting lessons at the local gun shop, and practice on shooting folks in leg.  At some point, he'll accidentally fire a round or two at the 'dummy-target'....hitting the 'balls' and then he'll start asking himself if it's worse shooting the guy's crown jewels....or trying aim for the shoulder.  

A Time To Think

 We are generally 'bombarded' twenty-four hours a day....seven days a week, and the rapid pace of news, public opinion, and hyped-up reaction....is dragging us along some path where things often don't make sense, or you end up with a story which is filled with 'holes'.

I can't think of a single story over the past couple of years where you felt entirely satisfied with the facts.  Sadly, we have mostly two-star journalists around now....who don't seem worried about missing features of a story, or that the story seems to be just enough for a 12-year old juvenile, but not for what you'd consider an adult.

I sat and watched a Dick Cavett show this morning....June 1970.  It was an odd group....Chet Huntley (the news guy who grew up in Montana), Raquel Welch, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Janis Joplin.  

It was probably the oddest group ever assembled for a evening talk-show.  Anyone remembering them today?  No.  You could test a hundred people, and the only ones knowing the four (or Cavett) would be those over the age of sixty.

They come to this odd point at the end of the hour, and Huntley is declaring retirement being not that far off, and that the pace of the news is one of those things drawing him to say 'enough'.

Oddly, as he lays out this 'pace of the news'....the group all kinda suggest the same thing.  X-amount of information is laid out, and the sense of where this is going to lead onto....is missing.  

You have to remember....this was 1970....before the internet came along, or cable news.  

In today's environment?  There just isn't enough time to sit and pause over what you were told....asking yourself what really happened here,  and then using a 'red-pen' to note missing key items to the story.  It's all told in a way to get a reaction....when the story is mostly a one-star story without much content.  

When Authority Means Nothing

 I've sat and watched this police-video (at least 15 times) of the Columbus, Ohio situation where this 16-year old teen (Ma'Khia Bryant) is shot by the police. 

It's up on YouTube and you can find it....to watch for yourself.

The 911 call?  Well....it's basically this 'warning' by the caller that all 'hell' is breaking loose and arguments with the potential for violence are underway....so the  cops arrive, and it's roughly ten to fifteen seconds after the arrival that you see two individuals (one guy and one teenage gal) who seem to be unaffected by the police car or police authority.

It's a odd thing to watch.....seconds where these two idiots are intently set on some type of violence, with no affect by the police presence. 

Maybe I'm from a different generation (1960s/1970s/1980s).  But generally, the minute a fire-truck or a police presence is established....my entire focus is upon the 'authority'.

These two?  I get the impression that you could have dumped out a 2,500-lb bull upon the crowd, and they would have continued their intended degree of violence.

So you see the teenager suddenly with a knife and progressing  toward a stabbing.  The intent to kill? Absolute.  

If the policeman hadn't fired?  Well...the teenager in the pink pants-suit would have been stabbed two or three times, and probably enough to die there on the front-yard.  

The 16-year old?  She would have gone off to prison for 15 to 20 years.

So I sit and ponder.....all people had to do upon the arrival of the police car....take note, and just chill out.  In this case, the police car and authority arriving....meant nothing to these two.  That should generally scare you.....we have dropped so low as a society, that authority means nothing.

The Kids Story

 Out in California....the state Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD) sent out a letter and basically asked folks who were on the foster parents listing....if they'd consider taking in 'unaccompanied Central American kids'.....who were recent 'cross-the-border-kids'.

The number asked here....one to twenty-six kids.

I sat and paused over the story.

Generally, people who were doing the foster parent thing....were fairly enthusiastic Christian-types, who felt they were doing a good deed and being compensated for their action.

The general problem here, if you sat and thought about it.....foster parents generally were doing something for a limited period of time.  In this case, it really does look like you'd be talking about three years minimum....and maybe on up to seven to ten years. In some of these cases....I've noticed the border patrol folks talking about kids being six and seven years old.   

A mess with no logical or sensible outcome?  That's the chief issue I'd see.  Maybe across the US.....you might find a couple of thousand 'couples who'd take a kid or two.  But if this got up into the 80,000 range (just for 2021) for unaccompanied kids? 

The only sensible 'fix' here is to round up the political figures of Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, etc.....to write up a 'return-the-kids' script, and pay the countries $5k (for each kid) to take back 'their kids'.  Getting the Biden team to admit they screwed-up?  That probably has to happen as well.  

My 'Two-Cents' on Income Equality

 Over the past five years....this topic seems to come up almost weekly via TV or the internet.  People are continually trying to refocus the audience upon the 'evils' of income equality.  Generally, I don't buy it.

Five generations ago, my family would have been set to a 1-room cabin, with water drawn from the local creek, and it wouldn't have been a shock for someone in their 30s or 40s to pass away because of a 'fever' or a snakebite.  

Just the mere idea of traveling more than fifty miles in one's life would have been a fantastic thing to consider. 

But things came along to change, and income revolution was one of those things.

An example, I have a relative in the period of the 1890s to 1925 who lucked-out upon a store that thrived, and this guy retired in his mid-50s.  He was literally set for the rest of his life.  If he'd wanted to take the wife and travel from NW Alabama to Chicago for a week....he could have done so without thinking over the financial cost.

Today?  I'm at a level where I retired completely at age 55 and the wife does a three-quarters type job, with financial values at such a rate....that if we weren't challenged with Covid problems....we could travel off to Auckland, the Pyramids, or Cape Town....without a lot of financial concern.  I admit....I won't be staying at five-star hotels, or driving luxury cars....but I could see the world, if I desired.

I'm just not buying into the income equality discussion because I've seen the better path.  The effort to suggest we are a society of 'losers'?  It's just not working on me. 

What bothers me on this entire discussion....there's some set of folks who want to be the 'guardians' of society, and just say the even amount that we are justified....is some magic number in their mind.  There's no real rhyme or reason to this magic number, and that fact ought to worry you.  So I'd just rather 'fire' the guardian guy and get him out of the middle of this discussion.  Let me do my own planning and money-management..