TGIF! Today is Friday, the 10th day of December 2021. There are 21 days left to this covid-plagued year. Today is the day for the perfection of diligence, for with it we completely attain all good things, and we teach and guide lazy living beings.
Redneck history lesson: On this date in 1996, country musician and honky-tonk legend Faron Young (Hello Walls, If You Ain't Lovin' You Ain't Livin', It's Four In the Morning, and Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young) shot himself in his Nashville home. Impermanence is swift. But on that very day that Young died, former LSU quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow (now with the Cincinnati Bengals) was born in Ames, Iowa. Life goes on.
During this month of December, the average number of new covids cases in Georgia has been steadily rising again. It remained steady at around 1,000 cases per day (give or take a hundred or so) for the month of November, and on November 30 the average was down to 874 cases per day. But that number steadily rose over the past 10 days of December, and now we're up to an average of 1,363 cases per day, the highest it's been since October 24.
Yesterday the state Department of Health announced that a third Georgian has tested positive for the omicron variant. The patient is an unvaccinated metro Atlanta resident with no recent international travel history, indicating the omicron variant of the virus may be spreading in Georgia. “You’re going to have local transmission,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, distinguished professor of infectious diseases at Emory University. “That’s how it always starts, first you have people who traveled, and then it starts spreading at home.” The patient has mild symptoms and is isolating at home. The state is tracing the person’s recent contacts in order to identify people who might have been exposed to the new variant.
I'm glad that I'm fully vaccinated and boosted.
Meanwhile, just over the cold and snowy eastern border of the Ukraine, Putin continues to amass Russian troops seemingly intent on invasion. Worse, Putin is claiming that Ukrainian counter-measures, including moving its own troops and surveillance facilities closer to the border, represent aggression on the Ukraine's part and justifies a Russian invasion. I recognize that this is happening half a world away, but this is how world wars start.
Don't get me started on the climate.
Or the attacks on American democracy.
These are crucial times, and I fear that the near-future world is going to be bleak and unforgiving for the next generation.
We really fucked it up this time, didn't we?
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