The Devil Went Down to Macon

I am a happy camper. For several weeks now, my spell checker has not worked. It used to work, then it stopped. Since then I have been using my native spelling ability, and that has shown me just how much I have come to rely on technology.

So, how did I fix it? I will let you in on a little secret.

Some years ago I worked at a place with an information technology guru who set up our computer stuff: servers, networks, etc. Now I have used computers for a long time, but for most of that time I used them to solve equations and to do repetitive calculations. Word processing, spread sheets, presentation slides, all those were new to me, so very frequently I found myself visiting our computer guru with questions: How do I extend the scale on this graph from the spreadsheet? How do I stop the spell checker from changing US English to UK English? That sort of thing. His response to every question was "Hmmm, let's see." He would then type a few words into a search engine, and present me with the result. In other words, he did an internet search for every question I ever asked. So, that's the secret: look it up.

Unfortunately, that did not work in this case. After downloading the latest and greatest version of the software, and following all the suggestions on the interweb, I found myself still with a non-functioning spell checker. Some setting had changed, I know not what, and it was impossible for me to locate the change.

Eventually, I opened a document from 2018, moved it into the 2021 blog folder, wiped out the text, then started typing in misspelled words. Voila! Little squiggly red and blue lines began appearing everywhere. Problem solved, as long as I use that old document as the template for every new document I write. Not exactly an ideal solution, but I can live with it, at least for awhile.

And apparently I will be living with it for quite awhile, as I have now had my second Pfizer Wuhan Flu shot. I had to drive to Macon to get vaccinated, but drive I did. Je suis invulnérable!

A little over a year ago, we shut the country down for two weeks, in order to "flatten the curve". That was the longest two weeks of my life. I admit, the stories at the beginning of this mess were scary. It is always scary when we do not have complete information. It is a human reaction, to fear the unknown. Incomplete information quickly becomes misinformation, and rumors replace facts. The death rate was ramping up, in part, because we were stumbling around in the dark trying to hit upon the right treatment regime, and in part because of stupidity (e.g., placing Covid-positive patients in nursing homes).

But things began to get better. The doctors and nurses who tried everything in a desperate attempt to find something that worked eventually found several things that worked.

True, the infection rate kept climbing, and the television news readers were sure to lead with those scary headlines every night. They didn't bother to mention that the death rate was falling. I have friends who had the disease, and they all tell the same tale: it was like the worst case of flu they had ever had, times ten. But the point is, they all talk about it, because they are still alive.

Common sense slowly began to return. Our local school system has been open, with students in the classroom, since the fall semester began last August. Our local hospital is new, but small. It has not been overrun with cases, and the local schools have not been super-spreaders. I drive by the baseball and softball diamonds daily, and it is a pleasure to see the kids out there, sans masks, enjoying themselves.

Things are different in the big city, but that is part of the reason why I don't live in the big city.

I also think it is healthy to see people questioning the wisdom of our overlords. Take the question of masks. Dr. Fauci did a radio interview in March of last year. His wisdom at the time: don't bother wearing masks. A week or so later that changed to "wear a mask and stay six feet away from others". Now it is "wear two masks and stay three feet away from others".

Question: if masks work, why do we need two?

Sometime around the first of April feel free to visit me here in Madison. I will be setting up a 55 gallon drum in the backyard, and establishing a new pagan ritual in celebration of our deliverance from the Wuhan Flu. I don't quite know what to call it, but its working title is “Mask Burning Ceremony”. "The Cure for Fauci-itis" seems too cumbersome.