These are the days of our social isolation…at least that’s what the old soap opera introduction said.

Yes…we’re officially bored. Not so bored that we’re going to go out and be amongst people…not that there’s anyplace to go anyway…but the confirmed cases of the corona in FL are increasing and although we are relatively low so far in Lee County and North Fort Myers specifically it’s only going to get worse.

The President has extended the federal recommendation through April 30…and my guess is that it will be longer than that before things get back to whatever the new normal becomes…at this point I would not be surprised if the college and NFL seasons in the fall don’t take place. I also think the downward trend in the markets will continue…and while that’s not good, at least our monthly expenses are covered by our pensions and Connie’s social security check so we’ll just continue to be the long term investors we have always been and eventually things will turn around.

I continue to be amazed at the levels of TDS…or Trump Derangement Syndrome…that both the media and almost all Democrats are displaying. While I realize that our two parties have different agendas and think different things are important…and under the Obama administration there were some, maybe even many, Republicans that talked trash about the former President…there were also many Republicans that tried to work with the other side and that tried to give the President the respect and deference that the office deserved despite their not being happy about the current occupant.

The media and Democrats have been belittling the President since the day after the election in 2016…and demanding his impeachment since before he was even inaugurated. There have also been countless scare articles with headlines like “Will Trump cancel the 2020 election”…and “Will he have to be removed from the White House by force” and other similar claptrap.

The President says…and rightly so although he should really be a little more Presidential and not complain about such minor things…that everything the media and Democrats are doing is a “hoax”…and they’re looking for something else to impeach him over.

It seems different now…and especially in the current situation which many are likening to a wartime scenario. Back in the day…it was “my country, right or wrong” and while we might have wrangled during the election season once the election was over the losing side accepted it and got on with the business of running the country, making deals with the other side so that both sides got some of what they wanted, and you were allowed to say nice things about the other side. I remember Joe Biden…back in the Dark Ages of the late 90s to early 00s…saying that he admired some Republican senators and even named them. I remember both Republicans and Democrats in the House, Senate, and administrations of both parties trying to mend fences, largely stayed away from demonization of the other side, and trying to keep politics out of things to the maximum extent possible.

No more though…

Just looking at today’s news…

• In “The 360”, there’s an article about why so many Americans do not vote. The headlined quotes all talk about voter suppression by the Republicans like this is a proven, widespread fact; how many Americans can’t get to the polling place and recommend same day registration, mail in voting, and other solutions which increase the ease with which non citizens can vote, and the like. There’s nothing balanced in the article.
• There’s an article on Yahoo with the headline “Pelosi says Trump’s downplaying of the corona has cost American lives. No respect for the office, no actual facts, just political diatribe.
• There is an opinion piece by John Oliver…a comedian for goodness sake, not anybody actually knowledgeable about anything…but a comedian with a liberal bent and a large social audience which somehow makes him worth reading…he says that “despite Trump’s claims (again, not the lack of respect) this is not the Hunger Games”.
• Another article…this one from the BBC…says that Dr. Fauci says “Millions of Americans could be infected and 100,000 to 200,000 will die. While the headline is accurate…he did say that could happen but in the article itself there is reference to these being the outer bounds of the estimates and that the current actions we are taking should reduce the actual numbers. What he tried to do was bound the outer limits of the problem but the headline seeks to inflame panic by quoting the outer limits as his actual prediction
• Hours after the President signed the $2 trillion corona relief bill…the governor of NY was already complaining that it didn’t do enough for his state…the ink wasn’t even dry on it when he and Pelosi demanded another even larger bill. Republicans who think that we should wait a bit and see how this 50% increase in federal spending this year works before saddling up generations to come with an even larger debt burden.
• Speaking of the relief bill…Republicans and the President are being condemned in the media and by Democrats because it “bails out huge corporations at the expense of the working people”. However…loans to business to allow them to…you know, remain in business and not go bankrupt…well, who do those morons think produces the vast majority of jobs in both the US and the world in general. While we can and should take care of workers…and the bill does some of that…making sure that they have jobs to eventually return to and trying to blunt the effect on the economy as much as possible seems like a good idea to me.
• And just to show I’m an equal opportunity stupidity basher…several churches out in the fly over states refused to halt services saying God would protect them…and then a bunch of folks tested positive. Yes…God will help you if you ask him…but sometimes you have to accept the help he sends you…LIKE A RECOMMENDATION TO CANCEL SERVICES TO KEEP INFECTED PEOPLE AWAY FROM CROWDS OF NON INFECTED PEOPLE THEY CAN INFECT.

I’m really getting tired of this bullshit…I have to tellya. I’m tired of reading articles about how the President “botched the response to the corona” when some of the policies that led to our so far less than perfect federal response were laid down during previous administrations.

Personally…I think the President should consider strongly a national lockdown to prevent travel and whatever else is needed to flatten the curve that the medical community talks about…but if he did, the same folks that are blaming him for incompetence and failure to do anything would be screaming from the rooftops that he had appointed himself President For Life.e

OK, enough of that…what are we really doing.

Not much.

We did get the second half of the broken hutch/china cabinet picked up by UPS today for return to Amazon so we’ll get that $1033 back and Connie picked out another one she likes almost as much from Rooms to Go online that we’ll see about ordering.

We have enough TP to last at least another 10 weeks or so…hopefully the supply chain will get back in gear and it will be available on store shelves by then. If not…we saved a couple hundred sheets of the 2 by 2 foot wrapping paper that some of our boxes in storage had stuff wrapped and cushioned in for emergency supplies.

We got food and booze and there will be enough food in the stores to keep us from starving. Last time we went out…Winn Dixie had pretty much everything we needed although the TP, paper towel, and sanitizer shelves were empty. Walmart has online ordering which according to some of Neil’s blogging buddies works pretty well so you just drive up and pick up your order…maybe we’ll try that. In reality though…we would run out of produce in probably another week and a half but we have plenty of noodles, pasta, rice, and enough so that we could probably go a month or 6 weeks without a grocery run if we had to…but at this point whether that will become necessary is up in then air somewhat. My guess is that the social distancing will help and we should start to see the infection curve turn flat and then down within the next 3-4 weeks.

That’s my story…and Ima sticking to it.

Neil did get a few photos since last time.

This is a Great Egret…identified by the black legs and yellow beak. Very similar to a Great White Heron but a different bird though.

Some sort of lizard on our tree trunk…this is a male as evidence by the red pouch he expands under his neck.

Fishing.

But mostly he just stood there.

Scratching his itch.

And his side which revealed his mating plumage a bit.

This is Lagatha…the smaller of our two gators in the pond out back. About 5 to 6 feet compared to Ragnar’s 7-8…but I’m guessing on both the size as we didn’t go down and measure em and the sex is completely unknown…the only way to tell the sex of a gator is an internal exam of the reproductive tract.

Interesting things found on the net.

New word.

This is an island on the tallest of 3 rocks about 6 miles off the coast of Iceland…notice the lighthouse on top. The lighthouse was built in 1939…well before the invention of the helicopter. Notice also the rock is about 120 feet high, has sheer sides, does not have any paths up the side, and doesn’t appear to have any place a boat can dock. Now ask yourself…(a) how the heck did they get the building materials up to the top since a floating crane would be bashed to pieces on the rock and isn’t tall enough anyway…and then how  do they get supplies and people out to the lighthouse. I have no idea…any more than I have about how the French built the lighthouse off the coast of Brittany in the second picture. The second one is only about 300 yards offshore so perhaps they built a temporary rock structure to provide dockage and crane footings…but the first one is 6 miles offshore and having spent many a week out in the North Atlantic Neil can tellya that it’s rarely calm out there…even on a calm day swells of 8 or 10 feet are pretty normal…and this is Iceland which is in the North Atlantic and based on his experience the seas in the photo are about as calm as it gets. I suppose given the amount of white water between the rocks that it might be shallow enough there for a temporary rock docking/crane area to have been constructed…and Connie thinks that once they got somebody to the top a hoist system could have been used instead of a crane although it would take many more lifts to get the job done. The third photo shows a wider view of the rocks…and according to the an old interview of the project director back in the 30s they carved a road out of the side of the rock.The lighthouse is named Þrídrangaviti…hey, it’s Icelandic so I don’t know what that first letter is and have no idea how to pronounce but I did see it anglicized as Thridrangar so mebbe that’s it…it has it’s own Facebook page…I’ve looked at all the photos there and I don’t see any signs of a road or even a spot where you could have built a road although down the right side in the first photo graph starting just at the helicopter pad there is a kinda/sorta/mebbe flattish are leading down and to the right/rear that could be the road remains, and given the arrangement of the 3 islets in the third photo that’s really the only feasible place to get a ship/barge with building supplies near enough to unload. I would fly out to visit it though…despite my figuring I’ve taken enough chances getting into a helicopter already.

Cyas.