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American Idolatry

2/28/2021

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While I was scrolling through one of the online news sites yesterday my eye was caught by this picture of a silly-looking golden Donald Trump statue, which I took to be just another piece of Trump lampoon art,

...akin to countless other ghastly Trump-inspired creations, such as the Trump Baby which floated over London for a while,

...or the Naked Donald Trump statues created by an activist street artist that for a while were popping up on streets in cities around the country.

But no. Much to my surprise - and I expect to the surprise of a whole lot of other consumers of internet news - this statue-thing is no mocking satire of a big-headed billionaire former president who is the avatar of self-serving greed and materialism and who is idolized like a false god by his followers. No, it was created, rather, as a tribute to Donald Trump by its proud artist, a Trump zealot named Tommy Zegan,

...to manifest the greater honor and glory of Donald Trump.

The Golden Trump is currently on display as the artistic centerpiece of this year's meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual Mecca of the Republican Party,

,...that is taking place this weekend in Orlando Florida in a venue with a stage shaped like the Nordic Rune that was displayed on Nazi uniforms and now shows up on White Supremacist uniforms.

After its run at the CPAC, the statue will be donated by the artist to the Trump Presidential Library if the Library will have it.
And how are the attendees at the CPAC reacting to this ugly, garish piece of gold-colored chrome and fiberglass? Are they appalled, offended, enraged to see their beloved leader caricatured with a gigantic shiny head, a fairy wand, caught without his trousers in over-sized screaming American flag shorts and sporting beach-bum flip-flops on his fat feet?
Hecks, au contraire. They love their ridiculous-looking Golden Trump,

...have thoroughly embraced it,

...absolutely adore it.

Now, I can't shake the suspicion that this so-called Trump-loving artist Tommy Zegan might well be a naughty undercover satirist who is taking CPAC and the whole of the Trump-worshipping Republican Nation for a grand ride. But then again, who knows? Maybe Zegan did in fact create his Golden Trump in full sincerity. There's no denying that Donald Trump has proven to bring out the most unthinkable of human persuasions and behaviors.
Still, one need not be a Biblical scholar to see a certain reference to another famous golden idol that was likewise a big - if temporary - hit in its time.

I can't help but think that the Republicans ought to drag their Golden Trump to the top of a high cliff and throw it over so that it smashes into a thousand pieces. Except of course, that Golden Trump is made of fiberglass and chrome and so it's a pretty indestructable idol that likely wouldn't be broken even if it were bounced down the Denali.
The Republicans are going to spend a long time wandering in the desert.

References
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/27/golden-trump-statue-mexico-cpac

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The Covid Anniversary

2/22/2021

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THE COVID ANNIVERSARY

I think the first wedding anniversary is supposed to be paper. And I know the 25th is the silver anniversary and the 50th is the golden one.
I'm not sure what the 44th anniversary is, but for my mate and me, married on February 19, 1977,

...number 44 will go down as the COVID anniversary.

For Tom and me - and I expect for many others for all the special occasions that came along during the course of this past year - what really distinguished this anniversary was the quandary of trying to figure out what to do celebrate it while Dr. Fauci was still telling us to stay home.

To be honest, most of our wedding anniversaries over the past 44 years came and went without any particular festivity on our part.
For our first anniversary we invited some friends to a party at Tom's brother's house in Cincinnati. (We lived at that time in Louisville, Kentucky while Tom worked on his Masters at the University of Louisville.

We moved the party to Cincinnati because we figured Louisville was too far a destination to ask our friends to travel to).
For our second anniversary, by which time we had moved to Columbus, Ohio, we went out for lunch, but by then I was already pregnant and, as I recall, way too nauseated to enjoy the food.
From then on we spent our wedding anniversaries doing basically the same things that we did all the other days of year, comfortably settled in as we were in our day-to-day routine of work and family, sometimes philosophizing that the most authentic celebration of a wedding anniversary lay in simply living the married life. I, for one, was fine with that. Or maybe always just too busy and tired to feel like doing anything else.

Then, a few years ago - well, it was in 2015, in fact - I found a Groupon for the Berlin Resort in Berlin, Ohio, in the heart of Ohio Amish Country.
From the photo in the Groupon ad the place looked nice,

...and advertised a good-looking pool, killer-looking work-out facility, and - here was the
clincher - a movie theater right in the hotel.

I found myself harboring a hankering for a get-away at this place, and since our anniversary was coming up - our 38th - we decided to to use this as an excuse - or rather, a reason - to stay at the Berlin Resort. Which we did. (See post from 2/23/2015, "Return To Amish County, Part 1").
Such a pleasant - if somewhat subdued - time did we have that from then on a two-night trip to the Berlin Resort became our go-to anniversary destination celebration.
Sometimes as our anniversary approached we would ponder whether we should go someplace else or do something else; after all there wasn't terribly much to do in Berlin, Ohio, where there was no alcohol, the town closed at five pm and the restaurants at eight, and the principle diversion was strolling up and down the main drag perusing the Amish arts-and-crafts stores (See post from 2/26/2016, "Clean, Sober - And Slightly Bored - In Amish Country").

But then every time, after tossing around a few interesting anniversary trip options, we'd always end up admitting that all we really felt like doing was spending a couple of days in Amish Country. And so we always did.

(Except for one year - 2017 - when I didn't snag a reservation in time and the Berlin Resort was all booked up and so we made do with a weekend of staying in town and checking out the local attractions, of which there are considerable in Columbus).

Which brings us to this year. For us, being one year into the COVID epidemic and still observing the quarantine, going to the Berlin Resort for our anniversary was, of course, out of the question. In fact, doing anything at all outside of our four walls was out of the question.
But What could we do at home to specialize our anniversary? Well, I finally decided, we could always eat.
So on the morning of our anniversary, instead of indulging in our usual breakfast of oatmeal (for Tom) and toast (for me), I fixed us the meal known in our family as the Big Breakfast that is usually reserved for Christmas and other rare special occasions,

...followed by a breakfast dessert of cinnamon cream cheese bread pudding.

That afternoon I made a cake, which I had originally intended to decorate, but then just decided to go overboard with on the icing,

...and layer with more icing and strawberry filling. As I lack the artistic pastry touch the cake came out, alas, as rather an ugly duckling presentation-wise, but it was trés delish all the same.

Tom, meanwhile, bought me some flowers,

...cheerfully washed dishes,

...and otherwise went on about his day,

...and I went on about mine, which included teaching my now-online piano students.

For dinner we had seafood pasta,

...and ugly but yummy cake.

After dinner we watched a movie, a thriller called "I Care A Lot,"

...in which Rosamund Pike plays an insidious villain with a terrifying haircut.

And so went our 44th anniversary, the COVID Anniversary. And now, on to another year of continuing to, as Cole Porter put it:
"Settle down as man and wife,
to solve the riddle called married life."

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How I Snagged My COVID Shot

2/17/2021

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HOW I SNAGGED MY COVID SHOT

Last week I was suffering from the COVID-19 Vaccine Blues.
At the beginning of the week vaccine eligibility for my age group opened in Ohio, and by Friday all the members of my Posse - formerly my Wednesday morning Panera Posse,

...now my Wednesday morning Houseparty Posse (see post from 4/10/2020, "The Posse Rides Again")

- had, except for me and one other Posse member, gotten either their shot or their appointment for their shot. All their mates had likewise been COVID jabbed or scheduled for a jab.
Even my mate had managed to wrangle himself an appointment.

And although when Tom's opportunity arose he gallantly offered to hold off until we could schedule our shots together, I insisted that he make his appointment, pointing out to him that there are certain things that we're pre-ordained to do alone: we come into the world alone, we die alone, we get our colonoscopies alone, and we must get our COVID shots alone.
Still, by the end of last week I was feeling mighty alone in the not-yet-vaccinated department.
I had registered my name for the vaccine shot at Ohio Health, Franklin County Board of Health, Ohio State Health, Mount Carmel Health, Meijer's and Drug Mart. Multiple times every day I checked the Walgreen's, Kroger, and CVS COVID vaccine websites. I likewise called the Ohio Health and Ohio State Health COVID hotlines a couple of times each day to see if a new batch of vaccine had arrived, some of the nice staff workers at those places having passed on to me the tip that one never knew when a new batch of vaccine would arrive, and if one happened to call and inquire at the moment when a new batch arrived, one had a chance of procuring a dose for oneself.
Frankly, I'm not sure why the distribution worked that way, but I figured mine not to wonder why, mine but to do or...well, hopefully not die.
And yet , while I was having no luck finding a COVID vaccine appointment, it seemed to me that plenty of others were having luck. Besides most of my Posse, their mates and my mate, word was coming in from friends and neighbors in my generational circle that they, too, had gotten their shots or appointments. On my Facebook page pictures were popping up of smiling friends pointing to their band aids. Those pictures made me more blue. (I swore that when I finally got my shot I was going to show a little pity for those who lingered where I now was among the COVID vaccine have-nots and not post a smiling me showing off my band aid).
And my morale took a right down thumping every time there appeared on my timeline one of these Kroger ads announcing that their stores had available vaccine.

I never failed to fall for the carney come-on of these ads, the sight of which always sent me scurrying to the Kroger website, only to have my hopes dashed every time.
Now, lest you be at this moment judging me as an overly-privileged, overly-self-absorbed, overly-anxious whiner, I will admit that yes, that's what I was being, and, in truth, likely still am. But let me add that one cannot control one's feelings. So if someone were to say to me, "Stop whining about getting your vaccine, you have it better than 99% of the world," that remark would likely have made me stop whining about getting my vaccine - at least in the presence of that person - but it wouldn't have stopped me from continuing to be overly-privileged, overly self-absorbed, and overly anxious.
I might also add that the reason I was so overly everything about getting my vaccine had nothing to do with being afraid of catching COVID. I'm not in the least worried about catching COVID or anything else, for that matter. I mean, jiminy crickets, I don't leave the house except to go food shopping or on an occasion trip to the post office, and then I'm invariably double masked, wearing a face shield, and practicing extreme social distancing.

Nor am I jonesing to get back out into the world. These days I acquire most of my material wants and needs from Amazon and I've become exceedingly fond of my own home cooking,

...and watching my movies with the members of my COVID bubble on Netflix and Prime.

I've even learned to cut my own hair, the results being maybe not the best haircuts I've ever had,

...but then, not the worst either.

Nor am I suffering from COVID vaccine peer group envy. I don't feel the need to have my vaccine just because everybody else has theirs.
No, the reason I wanted my shot so badly was because I miss my children and other loved ones with the heat of a thousand suns. And though being vaccinated against COVID might not make it immediately possible for me to visit with my unvaccinated daughter, son-in-law and grand children in Los Angeles,

...or my unvaccinated son and his girlfriend across town,

...or my unvaccinated sister in Portland, Oregon,

....it would, make possible a visit with my vaccinated daughter and her vaccinated husband, both healthcare workers in Chicago.

I figured six to eight weeks from the day I received my shot I could fly to Chicago or they could fly here to Columbus. And so I was yearning, burning and churning for that six-week count-down to begin.
I had several near-misses.
  One day I received a robo-call from Ohio State telling me to call immediately to schedule my shot, but in the five minutes it took me to reach the scheduling center the appointments had been given out to folks who were also robo-called and apparently quicker on the draw or just luckier than myself. That's how fast the shots were going.
Another day Tom was sitting at his computer trawling around the online vaccine-verse looking for any availability when the Mount Carmel site showed a list of available appointments. But every time he tried to schedule one of the open appointments a box would pop up on the page informing him that the proffered time was no longer available and then he would have to return to the appointment page and start over. One by one he watched the number of appointments dwindle until there were none left.
Yet another time a friend texted me to tell me to hustle to the Walgreen's site, that some available appointments were showing up. Once again I was beat out.
  Every near miss made me feel worse. I was concluding that I simply did not have good vaccine karma.
Last Friday morning - February 12 - I was shopping in Kroger's when I thought, Aw, what the heck. I perambulated over to the pharmacy and, feeling not a little foolish, asked the tech if by chance thy might have some vaccine available or maybe a cancelled appointment.
The friendly tech smiled sympathetically and said, "Oh, no, we sure don't."
I smiled back, thanked her anyway, and told her to stay safe.
"Well, wait a minute," said the tech. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and asked me for my name and phone number and told me that if by chance there was a cancellation she'd call.
Later that afternoon I could hear my cell phone ringing off in the distance somewhere around the house. I looked around for my phone, which had stopped ringing by the time I found it under some papers.
I checked the screen of my phone. The call had been made at 4:27 pm and was from a number unknown to me. I then realized that another call had also been made to my phone from that same number two minutes earlier. Oh fudge!
I pulled up the Kroger website lickety-split, and - oh superfudge! - the phone number of the pharmacy was the same as the phone number of the mystery calls on my phone.
My hands were already sweating and my stomach flip-flopping as I dialed the Kroger pharmacy number. Three minutes had passed since the last call from the pharmacy. I waited on the line another minute or two, sure beyond a miserable doubt that I'd once again near-missed my chance, this time through my own dumb fault for not having my phone at my fingertips every second of the day.
When a live pharmacist finally answered I was so ruffled that I could barely give her a coherent explanation for my call. However the patient pharmacist somehow understood what I was trying to spit out.
"Okay, wait just a minute," she said after asking me my name and birthdate. "Let me see...hmmmm...all right...hmmmm....okay..."
By now the Cirque de Soleil was preparing to doing its finale in my intestinal tract.
"Oh yes," the pharmacist finally said brightly. "That was you we called and yes, we do have a dose of vaccine for you."
The Cirque de Soleil stopped spinning and started singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
"I'll be right over!" said I.
"Sure, just come on by whenever."
Whenever? Seriously?  "No, I'll be right over!" I reiterated.
And you better believe I was right over.
Anyway, I got my shot then,

...along with an appointment for a second dose on March 12. (And three weeks from March 12 this mama hen will be on her way to Chicago to see two of her chicks).
After I received my shot I asked the pharmacist if she might by chance have one or two more leftover shots for my Posse friend and her husband, whom I was sure would be glad to zip on over if I called them. The kind pharmacist told me that there were no more doses left on that day but that I should have my friend call the pharmacy every day between four and five pm, as that's when they would know if there were any leftover doses.
I transmitted this information to my friend, who subsequently called the Kroger pharmacy daily between four and five pm as advised by the pharmacist, in hopes of eventually snagging a leftover dose or two. This morning my friend happily informed me that, while Kroger's hadn't panned out for her, she and her husband just received their appointments for their COVID shots from Ohio Health, which news made me very happy, too.
One of my children said to me, "You know, Mom, you're lucky, Think of all the other people who don't have all the time and resources available to them to do what you did to get a COVID shot."
I am thinking of all those others, and I admit that the process of vaccine acquisition in this country involves a messy mix of Darwinism and luck.
(Sigh). Next year in an immunized world.

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It's Ice! It's Snow! It's Graupel!

2/15/2021

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IT'S ICE! IT'S SNOW! IT'S GRAUPEL!

While winter snow and ice storms pummel the nation from the Pacific Northwest to the Mid-Atlantic and points South and Southwest, here in Columbus, Ohio we are currently dealing with a more unusual form of precipitation. It's not snow. It's not ice or sleet. It's not rain. Thankfully, it's not oobleck.

What we are covered in is a blanket of graupel. That's right, graupel. See?

Looks like snow, you say? It's not snow. That is to say, not exactly snow. Or ice. Or sleet. Or oobleck.
Graupel is formed when water freezes on falling snow. Where does the water that freezes on the snow come from? I guess it's just there. Why does it attach to the snow flakes instead of just falling on its own? I don't know that, either. I guess it just does.
Anyway, the water that happens to be hanging around in the air hitches a free ride on the snowflake, and pretty soon the snowflake no longer looks like this:

...but like this:

And so when it lands on the ground it looks like this:

....which is to say, snow. But graupel is not snow, as anyone who tries tromping through it will soon learn.
The thing about graupel is, it's soft and fluffy like snow, but it's slippery like ice, which becomes evident only when one steps onto it. Or into it.
And, unlike the soft, fluffy white stuff that it resembles, graupel weighs a ton, it's as heavy as ice, as one learns when one tries to shovel it.

Now, this evening being the first time I'd ever encountered the stuff or even heard of it, I pondered, as my mate and I endeavored to shovel the slippery, heavy stuff from our walkway and driveway,

...who thought to call it "graupel," which seemed to me an inappropriate word for the substance it denoted. As I shoveled away I kept thinking of "graboid," which is the name of the monster in "Tremors," one of my favorite movies. A graboid having a mouthful of claws and snakes all the better for grabbing people,

...these people in particular,

...the name does seem to fit, onomatopoeiacally speaking, the thing.
On the other hand "graupel," which also sounds like it should be a grabby thing or substance, is the complete polar opposite of anything grabby. In fact, graupel is slick as all get out, and would likely have taken both my mate and me down had we not been wearing our crampons attached to the bottoms of our boots, the word "crampon" likewise sounding to me like it should denote something other than chains or spikes that attach to the bottom of one's boot.

But then I don't make up the words, do I?

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

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A Valentine's Day Memory

2/14/2021

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A VALENTINE'S DAY MEMORY

Today I came across this post from a friend on my Facebook page:

This message suddenly brought me back to the days of giving and receiving those ever-popular little paper Valentine's cards that back then used to look like this ,

...while I went by Patsy Ann Rupp and looked like this:

Looking back, I remember when I was in grade school I used to send not one but three cards to each of the shy, unpopular kids in my class because I was worried they wouldn't get enough Valentines and I figured they probably needed a little extra love, anyway.
Not, to be clear, that I was among the cool, popular kids. Au contraire, during those 'tween years I ran - make that walked - in the social slow lane. I knew not the facts of life. (I'm not talking about the sex facts of life, though I didn't know those, either, but the life facts of life). I had no fashion sense (as exhibited in the above photo). I still played with Barbies at age 13. (See post from 3/6/2014, "Our Barbies, Ourselves").

But none of that mattered, because during those years I had something even more important than social savvy or kid coolness. I had a kind of social Kevlar which permitted me to bobble about the 'tween shark-tank blissfully oblivious of my low social status and hence relatively unscathed: I had a best friend.
Here's a quote from a blog I posted on 2/12/2014 called "Me And My Twinkie," in which I recounted my middle school friendship with Michelle and in which I compared us to two Twinkies in a package,

...back in the good old days when Twinkies came two to a package:
Did you ever see the movie "Dick" with Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as the best friends?
        That was my friend Michelle and me in middle school.
        Except that we never accidentally baked a batch of pot cookies or got in trouble with the secret service, though, like the movie best friends Betsy and Arlene, we did once write letters to the President (Kennedy). We mostly spent our time practicing our dance moves to Beatles records in front of the magnificent mirror that took up one wall of Michelle's living room; walking to C&M, our neighborhood deli of choice, for a popsicle or a Tastykake; sewing miniature clothes and collecting fashionable outfits for our Barbies..alas for us, Barbies and Beatles did somewhat overlap. About the worst thing we ever did was catch a bad case of poison sumac from scavanging through a mangy field for old soda bottles to return to the A&P for the deposit money. We were good girls.
    So individually, Michelle and I were probably too naive and ingenuous, too close to the antithesis of what was considered "cool" among the pre-adolescent crowd of the early 1960's to have advanced very far up the middle school food chain; but together we were accepted among our classmates as a unit. And who cared if we weren't? With each other we were comfortable and complete as two Twinkies sealed in their cellophane wrapper.
      I can remember that besides us there were at least two other best-friend units among the girls in our class, as well as a pair of twin sisters who more or less operated as a best-friend unit. We were part of the Twinkie Elite.
Me and my grade school Twinkie, Michelle, the last time we saw each other, about 10 1/2 years ago at my mom's 90th birthday.

So anyway, while I was, I suppose, technically at the bottom of the food chain in grade school, I didn't realize it, and so was in a position to feel some sympathy, some rachmones for those kids who I figured were. Or at least I felt it for them on Valentine's Day.
In retrospect, I'll bet they all thought getting three Valentine's cards from me was pretty weird.
Happy Heart Day, everyone!

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What Kind Of Trial Is This?

2/12/2021

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Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, this time for inciting an attack on the United States Capitol, is so strange, so surreal, so dreadful on so many levels.

While watching the trial one is glued to the videos being shown, some from Capitol security cameras, more graphic, more shocking, more horrifying than the footage that has already been seen by the public. There are violent insurrectionists breaking into the Capitol, smashing windows and doors, swarming the halls, shouting "Fight for Trump," waving flags bearing Trump's name and screaming for the death of Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence.

One sees images of terrified members of Congress being herded by guards away from their chambers and running for safety.

There is film of police officers being cursed at, attacked, mobbed, beaten.

There's a scene of an officer screaming while being crushed in a door by the rioters.
One is riveted by the arguments of the House managers prosecuting the case as they trace the trajectory of the tweets, TV appearances, rallies and pronouncements by Trump,

...preaching to his followers that the election was stolen from him and that they've been robbed of their vote, telling them to fight, provoking, encouraging, and calling for them to coalesce into the rabid mob that laid siege to the the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 for the purpose of overthrowing the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
One is sickened by accounts not only of the people who were killed during the insurrection, but of the injuries sustained by the police officers who were set upon by the mob: officers with gouged eyes, cracked ribs, smashed spinal discs, brain injuries; officers stabbed with metal stakes, attacked with bats, hit with wrenches. One officer lost three fingers.
But unreal as it feels to be watching the trial of a President of the United States accused of inciting a deadly insurrection against our country, what makes the experience all he more incredible is that this trial isn't about finding Donald Trump innocent or guilty. For that purpose this trial doesn't matter at all because all but a handful of the Republican members of the United States Senate decided before the trial even began that they were going to vote to acquit Trump no matter what the evidence.
On the opening day of the trial Donald Trump's two poorly prepared defense attorneys, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, spouted incoherent nonsense.

But it wouldn't have mattered if they'd come before the United States Senate whistling and tap dancing. As Senator Ted Cruz put it before the trial began,

..."The result of this trial is preordained. President Trump will be acquitted."
All the irrefutably damning evidence meticulously presented by the House managers against Donald Trump, most of it consisting of Trump's own words, didn't matter.

A number of Republican Senators made a point of publicly showing their distain for and disinterest in the trial proceedings.
Some of them ducked out during the testimony of the House managers.

Some read the newspaper.

Josh Hawley scribbled with his feet up on his desk.

Rand Paul sat maskless and doodled.
Rick Scott read a book.
Marco Rubio shuffled papers.
After the first day of the trial Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump to assure him that he would be acquitted. Said Graham, "I reinforced to the president the case is over. It's just a matter of getting the final verdict now."

So tell me, what kind of Alice-In-Wonderland justice is it when a juror brags to the press about having called a defendant to assure him that he will be acquitted?
No kind of justice, of course. And no kind of trial. Just something dreadful and unreal .

References:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/lindsey-graham-trump-not-guilty

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/politics/impeachment-sketches-day-three/index.html

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Run, Dr. Acton, Run!

2/7/2021

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RUN, DR. ACTON, RUN!

Ah, be still my heart!
Said organ has been all a-flutter ever since I spotted this headline in Friday's Columbus Dispatch:

For those who are unapprised of what the above news is referring to, it is referring to Dr. Amy Acton, physician, professor of Public Health at the Ohio State University and former director of the Ohio Department of Health, who apparently is considering running for the U.S. Senate to fill the seat of retiring Ohio Senator Rob Portman.
While many Americans are at least somewhat familiar with long-time Republican Senator Portman by name and perhaps by reputation and character,

...Amy Acton may be less well-known on the national scene than she is among Ohioans.
Here in Ohio Dr. Acton's name became a household word and her face a well-known one last year when she was in the front and center of Governor Mike Dewine's daily coronavirus briefings,

...during which she kept us informed and up-to-date in her soothing but authoritative voice on everything concerning the COVID-19 epidemic,

...especially how to stay safe and avoid spreading the virus to others.

Who among us here in Ohio didn't look forward each day to Dr. Acton's reassuring presence, her knowledgeable guidance, her clear explanations? Whose fears weren't calmed knowing that Amy Acton and her team of experts were the generals planning the strategies and leading us in the fight against the COVID epidemic?
Who among us didn't trust, admire and love Dr. Amy Acton?
As it turned out, there were some.
When the Ohio Health Department in tandem with Governor Dewine issued public safety orders such as mask-wearing, social distancing, nightly curfews, school closings, and business restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus, demonstrators protested the orders by congregating daily in front of Amy Acton's house and shouting anti-semitic threats at the gentle doctor, who is Jewish, and her family.

The Proud Boys made an appearance among the demonstrators.

However, while Amy Acton stood firm against the harassment of the demonstrators as well as the invective hurled at her from some Ohio business owners, she was ultimately compelled to leave her office by the right-wing members of the Republican-dominated Ohio State Legislature.
When the Republicans in the Ohio Senate began crafting and introducing bills to strip the Health Director of her authority to oversee public health policy and to reassign that authority to themselves, Dr. Acton resigned her position rather than be forced by self-serving politicians to become their straw woman.
Soon after she left her job as State Health Director Amy Acton joined the staff of the Columbus Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organization whose stated mission is "strengthening and improving our community for the benefit of all its residents." Dr. Acton was hired on as the Foundation's Director of Kind Columbus, an initiative to spread words and actions of kindness in Central Ohio (see post from 11/17/2020, "Director of Kindness"),

...a fitting post for Dr. Acton, who as Health Director regularly wove into her daily COVID-19 update briefings the message of the need for us to care for ourselves and each other .

And now we've learned that Amy Acton is considering running for U.S. Senate, to which I say - shout, cheer, beg - "Run, Dr. Acton, Run!"
Our United States Congress is crawling with too many gummy worms, too much rot gut and too many minds hollowed out by greed and self-dealing. Americans could use the addition of a Senator with some spine, brains, soul, and yes, kindness.
So please run, Dr. Acton. I promise you'll have your first campaign worker right here.

Reference:
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/04/amy-acton-steps-down-columbus-foundation-senate-run/4387971001/

https://www.ailantha.com/blog/director-of-kindness

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I Don't Get Shorting

2/2/2021

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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Buy them on Amazon.

I DON'T GET SHORTING

...Continued from yesterday:
Over the past several days I have read more than half-a-dozen articles on the backfiring of the Wall Street hedge fund shorting of GameStop shares. I still don't get shorting. Or short selling, as is its text book nomenclature.
It didn't help that most of the articles described shorting as "betting against a stock" without explaining what "betting against a stock" means. (I picture a a big electronic board upon which rows of colorful little fiber optic horses race against each other while on the floor below traders stand shoulder-to-shoulder shouting and cheering on their horses to lose because they've bet against them. For all I know, maybe that's what shorting actually involves). Anyway, the general message I took away was that if you don't know what shorting a stock means, then you don't need to know.
That being said, I did come across a couple of finance sites that were more forthcoming with the nuts and bolts of short selling stocks, and here's what I've been able to gather:

The hedge funds are the outfits that arrange for the short selling.
From a site called Investopia I learned that "one way to make money on stocks for which the price is falling is called short selling (or going short). Short selling is a fairly simple concept—an investor borrows a stock, sells the stock, and then buys the stock back to return it to the lender.
Short sellers are betting that the stock they sell will drop in price. If the stock does drop after selling, the short seller buys it back at a lower price and returns it to the lender. The difference between the sell price and the buy price is the profit (for short-seller)." (1)
And from The Motley Fool website I picked up that "the biggest risk involved with short selling is that if the stock price rises dramatically, you might have difficulty covering the losses involved. Theoretically, shorting can produce unlimited losses -- after all, there's not an upper limit to how high a stock's price can climb...If you lose too much money, your broker can (force) you to (buy) back the shares (and return them to your lender) at what could prove to be the worst possible time." (2) The above is what apparently happened to the hedge funders who had shorted the GameStop shares: The Robinhood app traders (see yesterday's post) communicated with each other, bought GameStop shares en masse, drove up the price of the shares by 1700%, made some money and left the short sellers owing a whole lot of money to the people, corporate entities, finance bots, money machines, or who- or whatever lent them the shares.
In short (I think):
1. Joe has shares of stock worth $100 a share.
2. You borrow ten shares - that would be $1,000 worth - from Joe.
3. You sell Joe's ten shares. You put the $1,000 in your pocket.
2. You sit tight and wait for the price of the stocks you bought from Joe to drop on the stock market.
3. When the price of the stocks has dropped from $100 a share to $5 a share you buy back ten shares - the number you borrowed from Joe - for $50.
4. You then return Joe's ten shares to him for their current worth, which is $50.
5. You make $950 on the deal.
6. Joe makes negative-zip.
Get it?
No, me neither. Why the heck would Joe lend you stocks in the first place, knowing that your plan is that when you return his stocks they'll be worthless? What's in all this for Joe?
(Would you lend someone your bike knowing that they were planning on selling your bike to a chop shop and bringing you back the handlebars?)
Unless, of course, Joe knows something that you don't know. Like maybe that that GameStop stock might actually come crashing up, up, up from the basement and through the roof and leave you owing him the price of the stocks that are now worth not the hundreds of dollars they were when you borrowed them, but millions?
I think maybe I do get the idea of shorting after all:

References:
1. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/how-does-one-make-money-short-selling/#:~:text=Short%20selling%20is%20a%20fairly,sell%20will%20drop%20in%20price.&text=The%20difference%20between%20the%20sell,buy%20price%20is%20the%20profit.

2. https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/how-to-short-stock/#:~:text=When%20you%20sell%20the%20stock,some%20time%20in%20the%20future.

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Everything You Don't Understand About The GameStop Thing Explained By SomeBody Who Probably Understands It Less

2/1/2021

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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Buy them on Amazon.

EVERYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE GAMESTOP THING EXPLAINED BY SOMEBODY WHO PROBABLY UNDERSTANDS IT LESS

I freely admit that I am probably among that segment of the population which bobs on the low end of the stock market IQ spectrum. However this status generally creates no real problem for me as neither my mate nor myself have ever in our lives owned a share of stock,

...and likely never will between now and the day we cross over the Rainbow Bridge.
In truth, it's only been within the past five days, since the GameStop saga has come to the foreview, that I've found myself at something of a disadvantage.

But after a bit of self-education I now get the general idea of the GameStop event that went down last week.
As I understand it - or think I do, in the broadest terms - the big-potatoes rich Wall Street hedge fund investors (aka those who didn't need their government stimulus checks) who had been in the process of manipulating GameStop stock in order to make it lose money for a profit for themselves - shorting, as this tactic is called - lost a ton of money collectively, while the small-potatoes amateur traders (aka those who did need their government stimulus checks), using a phone app called Robinhood, joined together, bought up huge shares of GameStop, drove up the price of the company's stock, and made a ton of money collectively while sticking it to the rich hedge fund short-stocking investors, the sticking-it-to-the-rich aspect of the deal apparently being more the point than the money made.
Or, as this meme so succinctly illustrates it:

So then, in a nutshell, the GameStop ploy caused the Wall Street Hedge fund investors to lose money on GameStop and the Robinhood investors to make money on GameStop.
The only player that seems unaffected by the event is...GameStop. The company was apparently on the verge of going out of business, which is why, though its stocks were worth only a few dollars a share, the Wall Street hedge funders were forcing its price even lower. But by the time the Robinhood traders had bought up the stock it was worth over $400 a share, as illustrated in this graph of the GameStop stock trajectory:

But the company itself is still on the verge of going out of business: that is to say, nobody has suddenly been high-tailing it to the GameStop stores to buy up its wares and generate more income for the GameStop company, its owners, vendors, and employees. Because apparently nobody really wants GameStop's wares, no matter how much its stock is worth.
Which begs the question: All right, I guess I don't even know what the question it begs is. Okay, maybe the question goes something like this: Can a thing that doesn't really exist generate and lose money?
Or is that what the whole stock-market-investing-hedge-fund-trading thing is really all about?

Beats me.
Stay tuned: Tomorrow (aka next time) I'll explain everything I likewise don't understand about shorting stocks.

References:
https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/how-to-short-stock/#:~:text=When%20you%20sell%20the%20stock,some%20time%20in%20the%20future.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102113/what-are-hedge-funds.asp#:~:text=Hedge%20funds%20are%20financial%20partnerships,leverage%20to%20generate%20higher%20returns.

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A Valentine's Day Memory

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What Kind Of Trial Is This?

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RUN, DR. ACTON, RUN!

I Don't Get Shorting

I DON'T GET SHORTING

Everything You Don't Understand About The GameStop Thing Explained By SomeBody Who Probably Understands It Less

EVERYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE GAMESTOP THING EXPLAINED BY SOMEBODY WHO PROBABLY UNDERSTANDS IT LESS

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​AMERICAN IDOLATRY

Like the blog?

You'll love the books!

​​THE COVID ANNIVERSARY

​​HOW I SNAGGED MY COVID SHOT

​​IT'S ICE! IT'S SNOW! IT'S GRAUPEL!

​​A VALENTINE'S DAY MEMORY

​RUN, DR. ACTON, RUN!

​I DON'T GET SHORTING

​EVERYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE GAMESTOP THING EXPLAINED BY SOMEBODY WHO PROBABLY UNDERSTANDS IT LESS

Archives

Categories

AMERICAN IDOLATRY

THE COVID ANNIVERSARY

HOW I SNAGGED MY COVID SHOT

IT'S ICE! IT'S SNOW! IT'S GRAUPEL!

A VALENTINE'S DAY MEMORY

RUN, DR. ACTON, RUN!

I DON'T GET SHORTING

EVERYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE GAMESTOP THING EXPLAINED BY SOMEBODY WHO PROBABLY UNDERSTANDS IT LESS