Don’t tell my family.

Amish are deeply hesitant to get vaccinated for coronavirus, a stance that reflects rural mistrust of the government as much as it does any religious conviction.

Blended Variant in Vietnam

Vietnam’s Health Ministry announced Saturday that it had detected a highly transmissible new variant of the coronavirus that has helped fuel a recent wave of infections in the country.

Genetic sequencing indicated that the new variant was a mix of the coronavirus strains first detected in the United Kingdom and India, said Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, according to the VnExpress newspaper.

The minister said the new variant was particularly contagious via air and viral cultures have revealed it replicates extremely quickly, the newspaper reported.

“The new variant is very dangerous,” Long said in a statement.

God save us (from your followers)

The pathway to ending the pandemic runs through the evangelical church,” -- Curtis Chang, former pastor and missionary, founder of ChristiansAndTheVaccine.com

40% of white evangelical Protestants said they likely won’t get vaccinated. With white evangelicals comprising an estimated 20% of the U.S. population, resistance to vaccination by half of them would seriously hamper efforts to achieve herd immunity.

Not just trolley problems

I was going to do research, but the pixels just moved about on the screen. Intellectual traction is lacking and I'm low-key tired, but otherwise I feel okay.

 

I took a bath and that helped some. Made a grilled cheese with banana peppers and dijon mustard, grilled in butter.

 

Then I looked up the percentage of the US population that is under 16, since no covid vaccine exists for that age group. Friends, it's right around 22%, which means that to achieve population coverage of 75% vaccination, I'm going to find myself saying that it's a moral mandate for all adults (without an extremely limiting medical condition) to get vaccinated, which means I'm going to say that religious exemptions do not matter in this particular case because a constraint on liberty is of less harm than death. Friends, my only saving grace here is that I'm in no way pretending that this is not a harm, it's simply a lesser harm.

I knew I was a utilitarian, but dang. I didn't know  I'd end up writing it down in such stark terms.

Life of a Philosopher

This morning I'm reading, writing, and drinking tea, my preferred way to spend a Saturday. Back in 2014,  the national measles outbreak--and the intense public conversation that went with it--propelled me to write my 2016 Master's thesis.

Friends, I'm still at it.

Graduation isn't the end of scholarship; it's the beginning.

 

 

Life of a Philosopher

Here we have my favorite anti-vax theory (government experimentation) coming to light once again. This is bunk. It was always bunk. It will never not be bunk.

In 1999, my then-husband started railing about vaccinations as covert military-industrial experiments, sounding like some new X-Files episode. He was deadly serious, and I discovered that there were a whole meaningful sector of americans who believe this and that, similar to the flat-earthers, they don't lack education but they lack trust and are therefore impossible to sway; presenting data as evidence of truth only manages to convince them that you have been brainwashed. (Obviously, this marriage was doomed from that moment on, but that's not the point just now.)

During my undergraduate research, I read "The Columbian Exchange" and "Plagues and People's," both excellent works, and they were influential for me personally. By the time "Guns, Germs, and Steel" came out post graduation, I was already convinced of much of what Jared Diamond wrote, but I read it anyway and was glad it was getting press.

The Jenny McCarthy-Jim Carey promotion of Wakefield's dubious autism link in The Lancet pushed me back into ethics in my grad studies. The 2014 measles outbreak saw me have enough to say that I wrote my Masters Thesis, much to the delight of the board of trustees, finally sacrificing my cherished status an active student. (More on why this was a huge loss for me in another post.) I completed my Masters in two terms, and my thesis passed with distinction in May 2016.

As the 2016 election wore on, republican candidates raged against vaccinations, and I scouted for the right PhD program for my particular line of inquiry, finding a home at UK-EPE's Philosophy and Cultural Inquiry program. Just as my first doctoral term approached, coronavirus emerged; I knew enough to be dismayed by public behavior, and in May of 2020 I took a leave of absence for a year with an option to make it only one semester if better solutions presented themselves by January 2021.

Online and hybrid classes allowed me to return to studies in the Spring of 2021, and now I'm working on my dissertation, which might be no more than a long subtweet of RFKjr. I expect to be writing about this all summer, in between the terms of the core coursework.

Double Take

Think of all the cases of Coronavirus that the US had up to Thanksgiving. That's a lot of cases, roughly 12.5 million. 

Since Thanksgiving, we've doubled it.

Callous disregard for the harm we cause others is the real virus.

Oyez, oyez!!

Oyez!! Oyez!!
Let it be known throughout the Land!

I have submitted my final (very) rough draft of my thesis for the MFA.

Huzzah!!

Writing Retreat: A thesis and an Author Pic

Writing Retreat

Thesis Rough Draft workshop retreat saw songs as much as stories.
Also sushi night, dryer-drum fire tacos, and dining hall shenanigans (including security guards and cashmere).
Life is good.

Error Message Overlords

I am anxious about the state of the thesis; the truth is that I haven't had the presence of mind to craft it as a whole. Like me, the writing has been a kaleidoscopic undulation, a tumble of fractured pieces through darkness and light. The thesis requires a minimum of 80 pages, and as of today, I have a month to put any sort of finality into the final rough draft.

I haven't transcribed anything from the notebooks in over a year.

I have no idea what goes where.
Every time I think about writing more or assembling what I have, I feel like a Slinky tossed down the stairs.

The world spins away from me into that moment of indecision, a shutter-snap sliver of time when I can't decide if I'm going to have a panic attack or be buried by claustrophobia.

When the claustrophobia attacks first started to join the panic party back in August, I felt defeated, as though my schoolyard-brawl partner hired a street-thug to join the fight. But I've learned to make use of this indecision point; it's an escape hatch if I can reach through the fear. This usually looks like me standing up and walking, even if just a few steps. Frequently I end up removing a jacket or a sweatshirt in the process, though I never remember taking off my clothes. Today it looks like walking into the bathroom and dropping the stopper into the tub drain, turning on the taps. A pregnant dollop of lavender soap swan-dives into the steam. Bubbles sketch an arc toward the shallow end. 

I  wade through the emotional mess that keeps me from looking at the writing situation, scoping out the extent of how deeply in toxic waste I am, how far I am from where I need to be, measuring the spread of the disaster zone. I open the cloud drive on my phone and select the files, memoir pieces that have made it to digital to date.

I've turned into some sober, female, wifeless version of Trumbo, legs stretched out in the enameled cast iron as I let the jumble in my mind settle. Bubbles help. Confession: I have written most of my thesis on my phone. Being able to create, edit, send, and print files from my phone while in the tub is proof that God loves me and wants me to be happy.

 I select files to send to the printer and began breathing as the pages spit out in the other room, each one taking me a single step closer to the goal post. It matters less that you were first or eighty-first in this marathon; it matters that you crossed the finish line. The printer hums and I set the phone aside, laying my care and fear down with it, just for now. The water is my favorite temperature, almost too hot to bear.

I close my eyes and hope that I have at least 65 pages waiting for me.

The printer sends an error to my phone, annoying me from my reverie. I don't bother to read it. I pull the stopper from the drain and dry off, figuring that there is a jam in the feed, the bane of all printing jobs, an irritation so common in the twentieth-century office-life as to be cliche. I start the kettle as I dry off. My hair smells of lavender as I squeeze water from the damp ends into the towel.

The battery of green lights at the printer confuses me -- nothing indicates at first glance where the jam might be. I pick up my phone to read. "Reload Letter Paper." On autopilot, I walk tot he filing cabinet to comply with my commands from the Error Message Overlord, towel wrapped around me and feet still plumply damp on the hallway carpet. (Remember back when we used to tell computers what to do? That was a neat time.) The file cabinet drawer closes with a click-thump that will always sound satisfying and I carry the new paper toward the printer.

Then the meaning of the message hit me: the printer ran out of paper.

 I had a hundred sheets or more in the tray. The pages are double-sided.

I have at least 200 pages already written.

My smile spreads across my face and into my hands as I fill the printer tray. The last of the water drains from the tub, the gurgle in the pipes a frolic of bass notes to join my laughter in the empty apartment. My fears are ridiculous.

Everything's going to be fine.

Slam. Dunk

WOOT!
GUESS WHO JUST GOT AN A+ ON HER THESIS?

ASPECT Conference

This weekend I attended the ASPECT Conference "Crisis and Transformation" at Tech. The conference was surprisingly wonderful. I really enjoyed each session, and didn't seem to have anxiety issues when presenting, a new experience for me. I presented a piece calling for a fourth wave of feminism, one that deconstructs the old, patriarchal framework of success-through-wealth-and-corporate-prowess. It was fun.

Afterwards, I got my advisor's blessing for my thesis; all that remains are a couple citations and the prescribed format. I'm pretty thrilled.

Now, it looks as though my April opened up pretty wide.

There and back again

Heard back from my thesis advisor. Edits are spot on, and I should set up table of contents, bibliography, title page and deliver to the second reader on Monday.
Leaving this morning for the conference, notebook in hand.
My presentation isn't until tomorrow afternoon, but after registration a woman is talking about "necroscapes and the necropolitical in Blade Runner," so I'm going to go to that, and then there is a reception in the evening.
Probably won't be back until ten or later tonight.

Yesterday was a total resting day.
I got the thesis draft with notes back from my advisor. The word "outstanding" was used. I'm tickled.
His notes and edits mostly go to ditching a lot of my conversation of theory, which was always the weakest part, as I saw it. I am happy to take it out more or less altogether, since I'm an action kind of philosopher.
This morning I looked at teaching positions available at the local community college. They have a ton, and I plan on applying for at least two of them. I know, I know: "You have a master's in philosophy; what are you going to do with that: Teach?"
Best conversation along those lines was when someone asked:
Them: "Philosophy. You make any money with that?"
Me: "I designed my own currency system once; does that count?"
Yesterday seemed to be a day of grounding. I ended up neatening up around the house, and Vivian settled into her rountine and expectations a bit more. I'm really proud of her, and she is showing me that this is the right path. I don't think she needs a school so much as she needs companionship at this point. I talked with my partner about possibly getting a dog for her once graduation is over. He is fine with it; I'm the one dragging my heels because I know how I am about training epectations and how much time it will take. Nonetheless, it's the right thing to do for Vivian. I'm thinking a black lab.
Today the living room gets painted and crown molding begins. I have visions of it in every room of the house, but one room at a time is all I can afford. And, you know, it's the living room, so I can't think of a better place to start.

Baton Rouge is Ground Zero

http://theadvocate.com/news/14906637-123/already-leading-nation-in-hiv-and-aids-case-rates-capital-region-has-as-many-as-1000-more-living-wit

Shaking loose

I feel as though some sort of log jam has shaken loose. After months of struggling on many fronts, paths are opening up and possibilities are starting to materialize.

Nothing is solid quite yet; I will update as things materialize. Keep watching this space.

In 2014, the Department of Justice (PDF) noted in a best practices report that many state’s disclosure laws “criminalize behaviors that the CDC regards as posing either no or negligible risk for HIV transmission even in the absence of risk reduction measures.”

“While HIV-specific state criminal laws may be viewed as initially well-intentioned and necessary law enforcement tools, the vast majority do not reflect the current state of the science of HIV and, as a result, place unique and additional burdens on individuals living with HIV,” the report concludes.

Why cause of death matters

Why do we need to know the reasons people die?

Measuring how many people die each year and why they died is one of the most important means – along with gauging how diseases and injuries are affecting people – for assessing the effectiveness of a country’s health system.

Here's a handy interactive chart. 

Women and AIDS in the U.S.

For too long, women's health was neglected in AIDS research, in clinical settings, and in public policies. Now, as a result of an increased focus on women's health and HIV/AIDS, there are hopeful signs of progress. To make further gains, a fast-tracked, comprehensive strategy is needed, mobilizing all sectors of society to prevent HIV infections in women, their partners and children, provide testing and early treatment to all those in need, combat discrimination and stigma, and eliminate violence against women.