In Regard to the Coming Year….

That’s a multitude of geese having a New Year’s Eve party at a nearby stopover.  Just a small portion of them, too, and they had many, many others joining them when I visited that lake last night. I’d guess at a crowd of about 300 total.

This morning, they were really having a honking good time on this layover. And it will warm up by Sunday, enough to make them stick around even longer. I’ve got pictures of geese returning from the southern winter spots in early February and starting their house hunting right away. But the squawking these honkers were doing was enough to make you deaf if you were too close.

Time to stop looking back, isn’t it? Most of last year was a pain in the back side. Follow this restriction and that restriction and hey, presto! You’ll survive something.

Lots of conspiracy theories have appeared everywhere, all with the “it’s all a gubmint plot!” included, but so far, the only “worst case scenarios” have come from bad management at many state levels. No point in going into recriminatory details, but this bug can shift its antigens at will and turn into a new variant of itself. It has done so several times now, for no reason other than it can.

If there is a problem believing that a virus can do such things, every confounded flu shot has to be changed every year, because whatever influenza strain attacked last year has changed its antigens by combining with other flu viruses and other structures, and become a new variant. That’s easier for a virus than it is for a bacterium because viruses are made of RNA (ribonucleic acid) and they’re a lot more flexible about shape-shifting and lethality than any other bug on the planet.

Maybe the real complaint stems from the idea that we poor souls have been told to avoid contact with “other”, and don’t think we should have to do that. And staying indoors is ‘so harsh’? What’s the real issue there? That the whiners can’t go trotting around at 12 midnight like they think they used to do?  Oh, I know: it’s all some nefarious plot to scam to control the masses, but I haven’t seen much control of anything, except for self-control… which seems to be lacking in some people, If we’re all restricted, how come I’m out at 7AM shooting goose party phots?

Yeah, change is hard, and businesses are having a tough time, but it’s worse elsewhere and while two new strains have turned up in the USA as of this morning, the other news is that China is getting hit again. It’s worse in the UK. They got one of the new variant strains early on. So much for all that due diligence and hands-washing and separation and cloistering.

If you think you have it bad, how do you think cloistered nuns and clergy felt during the sweep-throughs of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, never mind invasions of leprosy and typhoid? People survived it and moved on and those things eventually ran their course.

Even Elizabeth I was not immune, when she was told ‘Thou hast the pox, my liege,” by her chief physician.  Would you rather have smallpox raise its ugly head again?

I’m going to follow the plan of the geese; look forward, screw last year sideways, and move on.  I hope you will, too.

 

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", COVID-19