Bryce Moore's Blog, page 78
November 17, 2020
A Tale of Two Pandemics: March vs. November
I’ve been reading accounts from doctors and hospitals about just how bad things are getting in many parts of the US (and the world), and it struck me today how stark a difference this November is compared to what we were looking at in March, and how that might affect our December, January, and February.
When the pandemic first really started ballooning out of control, there was a lot of panic. There were tons of unknowns, and so people responded as if it was the end of the world. Or at least the end of the toilet paper supply chain, in any case. Did we over-react in March? Well, yeah. Justifiably so, I’d say. The stories coming out of Italy and New York City were so bleak. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen across the rest of the world. Remember what that felt like?
Compare that to today, where a lot of people are convinced the pandemic was just a big hoax, or at the least overblown. Where masks are viewed by many as more of a political theater as opposed to an actual safety measure. Where we’ve had plenty of time to acclimate ourselves to the concept that many people will die, and suddenly deaths are relative.
(I can’t imagine using the same rhetoric people use to dismiss COVID deaths to dismiss other events in history. 9/11 killed around 3,000 people. It affected just a couple of passenger planes. By COVID reasoning, we shouldn’t be worried about that at all. After all, way more people die of heart attacks or the seasonal flu. World War II? 85 million people. So what? That’s only about 14 million deaths per year. There are 40 million abortions every year, give or take.)
Now consider that on April 1st, the US had had 209,692 cases of COVID identified. We’d had 6,476 deaths. Total. (Even a month later, we were still “only” up to 67,229.) Italy? They’d had 110,559 cases and 13,195 deaths. Those were the numbers when so many people in the nation and the world were feeling hopeless and grim.
Compare those numbers to today. The US is averaging 1,170 deaths per day. We’ve had over 250,000 total. Italy is averaging 569 deaths. Its peak was 817 per day. Granted, those are across the entire country as opposed to isolated areas, but the trajectory is exactly the same.
Remember all the people cheering for the hospital workers on their way back from their shifts each day? These days, I don’t see nearly the same sort of respect for those people. Instead, I see more disdain for the demands people wear a mask. I see more dithering about the “right to not wear a mask.”
We can know with a fair degree of certainty how many people who get COVID in the US today will die in three weeks. 1.8%. Right now we’re averaging 158,000 cases per day in America. While our current death rate is 1,170/day, three weeks from now it will be around 2,844. (You can see all the math at the link I posted there.) That’s baked in. Statistically, those deaths have already happened, as bleak as it feels to say that. Our peak so far has been 2,259 deaths per day on average. So we’re going to blow right by that, no matter what we do. And it will get much much worse unless we all start really taking it seriously.
But look around. I just don’t see anyone taking it more seriously than they’re taking it right now. Not before Thanksgiving, at least. There will come a tipping point. There has to, right? A point where finally we as a country recognize this for what it is. But I’ve been reading both CNN and Fox News regularly since the election, just to see how two sides of the country might be viewing what we’re going through. CNN gives a fair bit of credence to this. Fox, much less. They’re much more concerned with Trump’s rallies, his legal challenges to the election, and what might happen in Georgia. Yes, they cover the vaccine news, but it’s presented in a “the cure is almost here” light.
I don’t want to take hope away from anyone, and I am very happy good vaccines are in the pipeline. But that’s all the more reason to take the next few months as seriously as we can. The pandemic is running on a big portion of individual exceptionalism right now. The thought that if I do something different, it’s not a big deal, because it’s just me. I can decide to not wear a mask or go to a party or have a Thanksgiving dinner with “just a few other families,” and it’s going to be fine. But you take that approach and magnify it millions of times, and you’ve got serious problems.
In so many ways, our past determines our future. I understand why people aren’t taking COVID as seriously now. It’s more familiar. It’s been around, and so it doesn’t seem as scary. But the numbers we’re facing now would have shocked us into much more action eight months ago. I’m hoping they spur us to more action today sooner rather than later.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 16, 2020
My Orange Juice Approved List
Call me a purist, but when it comes to orange juice, there are only a few ways that I think you should consume it. In fact, it would be easy to assume a post like this doesn’t even need to be written. But then I come across people who are using orange juice in decidedly unapproved ways, and I just can’t remain silent. It is my obligation–no, my duty–to speak out.
Case in point: Saturday, I came into the kitchen to see one of my children eating granola. Nothing wrong there. Good old fashioned crunchy goodness, right? Except they were eating their granola . . . with orange juice. I realize a number of you still don’t quite grasp the horror. After all, multiple sugary cereal commercials reminded us all growing up that orange juice is part of a complete breakfast, right? Nothing like having some granola and maybe some sips of orange juice from a glass next to your granola.
Except this child was eating orange juice with granola. Meaning, taking a nice bowl of granola and milk. Now take out the milk and replace it with orange juice. I apologize to those of you with weak constitutions, but that child isn’t the only one with such flagrant orange juice violations. On my mission in Germany, one of my companions would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches . . . and then dunk them in orange juice.
No, my friends. This sort of food abuse simply won’t do. What’s next? Pouring orange juice over pizza? Spaghetti and orange juice? Chocolate cake with orange juice? A tuna fish orange juice smoothie?
Not on my watch. If you want to safely consume orange juice, here are the approved ways to do so:
In a glass. By itself. In some sort of a smoothie. This smoothie may contain fruits and possibly some vegetables if you’re feeling particularly healthy. No solids shall be added to the smoothie that is not fruit or vegetable based. Additional juices or milk is allowed, but don’t go crazy.
And that’s it. It’s a short list, so it shouldn’t be that hard to master. Any time you’re tempted to veer off the list and add something funky to your orange juice, don’t. End of story.
Friends don’t let friends abuse orange juice.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 13, 2020
A Socially Distant Thanksgiving
There’s a string of articles appearing online right now, saying that if you’re going to get together with family for Thanksgiving, then you all need to start quarantining . . . yesterday. I’ll be honest: I don’t think getting together with family who don’t live in your actual house is a good idea at this point, period. Denisa and I had been thinking about going down to Pennsylvania like we usually do, but in the end after discussing it with family, we all decided it just wasn’t for the best.
But what if everyone who was coming agreed to quarantine first? I don’t think that’s realistic. Working in a library and talking with public library directors across the state, I just know full well how mask usage and social distancing is being handled by different people. I would not want to rely on someone else’s definition of what “quarantine” means when it comes to this.
Now, I realize that there are many of you out there who disagree with me on this. There’s also probably a number of you thinking about getting together “just with close family,” somehow thinking that limiting it that much will be enough. However, all the research I’ve looked into on the subject indicates getting together in small groups for hours in the same indoor location is exactly the sort of setting for prime COVID spread. Sure, it might seem at first glance that if it’s just you getting together, it’s no big deal, but if you expand that “just a couple very close family members getting together” to a national level, then it becomes much more concerning.
So what will we be doing? Making Thanksgiving dinner on our own this year. Yes, it won’t be nearly as much fun as all the other Thanksgivings we’ve done, but this is one time when missing out on some fun seems worth it, when the cost if we do it another way is potentially infecting and killing our loved ones. Things are looking good for getting a vaccine more widely available in the spring. At this point, it seems to me the main goal shifts to getting through the winter in as good of shape as possible.
Kind of a downer, but I think it’s necessary this time.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 12, 2020
When Do You Hit Peak Family?
Sort of an introspective post today. Tomas has a little over a year and a half left until he graduates and can go on a mission. I have a niece out on a mission now, and quite a few other nieces and nephews who are already out on their own. So it’s becoming increasingly clear that this family Denisa and I have spent sixteen years putting together is going to spend the next while getting scattered to who knows where.
Which is the point of having kids. I get it. I’m not living with my parents anymore, after all. Denisa’s not even in the same country as her family. You have kids and do your best to give them a good childhood and a good base to launch themselves off into whatever it is they want to do. But it’s still definitely bittersweet. This pandemic time has been a great opportunity to spend time together as a family, and I think we’ve at least used it well for that purpose.
But it all has been reflecting back on when I was growing up, and what time of my life I’d consider “peak family,” meaning the gang was all assembled, and things were clipping along at full speed, without any slowing down for the upcoming departures ahead.
At first, I would think peak family is reached right before the oldest child heads off to college or out of the house or wherever. After all, that’s the point in time when everyone is as mature as they’re going to get when they’re all under one roof. But the more I think back on my time growing up, the more I’m not sure that’s right. Kids don’t leave the house all at once. They become increasingly independent, so that they’re out of the house on their own more and more as the years go by. School activities. Jobs. Hanging out with friends. Until this pandemic hit, Tomas was out and about as much as Denisa or I was. Maybe more. Daniela was also getting a pretty full schedule, between sports and music and time with her friends.
So is the peak earlier than that? Maybe it’s when everyone’s still mostly one unit, doing everything together at all times? In that case, it would probably come when the oldest child’s in middle school or junior high. Still too young to be left alone for long swathes of time. Especially not when there are very young children at home to be watched. Sure, they might go out to a birthday party now and then, but for the most part, it’s all for one and one for all.
But that doesn’t really feel entirely right, either. Part of the real joy of being a parent (for me) has come from watching my kids grow up. Getting glimpses of who they’re going to be when they’re adults. Younger kids have their own personalities, no doubt, but they’re also really dependent on what you want and like. Case in point: Tuesday night we let Tomas and Daniela choose what they wanted to do. Tomas played some computer games with his friends, but Daniela decided she wanted to watch a movie. “An old movie. Something really good, like His Girl Friday.” She’s really developing into a movie buff on her own. We watched “Bringing Up Baby,” and she thought it was fantastic. Because it is. Seriously.
So can you really feel like your family is at its peak when the kids are still dominated by the parents?
The more I think about the question, the more convinced I am that “peak family” is an illusion. A family is always in flux, and trying to hold on to any part of it and think of it as “Well, this is it. This is the peak, and it’s all downhill from here” isn’t just depressing. It’s wrong. But you feel like it’s right, because as a kid, your family can feel like it’s a constant. Like it’s always been there and always will be there, and so when it starts changing, that can be kind of disturbing. But as a parent, you know that it’s always been changing. First it was just Denisa and me. Then we added Tomas four years later, than Daniela four years after that and MC five years after that. Heck, even adding Ferris to the mix has been a change for our family.
And has the family I grew up with even reached its peak yet? That’s so hard to define. We’ve lost members along the way. Uncles. Step mothers. Grandparents. But we’ve also added members through marriages and births. I’m not as close to all of them as I have been in the past, but when we get together, there’s still that real bond, and social media, for all its flaws, does a pretty good job keeping us all connected.
I suppose, in the end, a family is very much like the seasons. There are definite stages to it, though there will be cold days in summer and warm days in winter, and the boundaries between those stages can really be muddled. So maybe you can have “peak autumn” and “peak spring,” but there will be other peaks in between and afterward. If you get too tied up in trying to identify which stage you’re in at any one time and worrying about it going away, then you miss out on actually enjoying where you are in the moment.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 10, 2020
Creativity in the Time of COVID
I’m tired, folks. I know I’m not alone in the feeling, but there are definitely days that I just feel totally worn out. Like the only thing moving me forward in all of my different endeavors is the elaborate system of daily goals I’ve got worked out for myself. But there are definitely days like today, where I know I have a goal (write a blog post every weekday), and I just come up to that goal and stare at it for a good long while before I actually muster up the gumption to get it done. And that’s with something as straightforward as a blog post. (Seriously. I have so many things to say about so many different things, usually it’s not that hard to take ten minutes to jot down some ideas about something or other.)
Creative writing? Yikes. That can be really rough. When you’re already battling depression for yourself, concerns about your family, troubling news in the world, worry around your job, election results and the emotional fallout of that with your friends, trying to push forward and get 1,000 words written each day can feel daunting to say the least. Often because I’m my biggest critic. I’ll write something, and then I’ll just see all the reasons it’s bad. There are many voices in my head, and sometimes most of them are telling me to stop what I’m doing.
So yeah. Tired. And again, probably something most of you are also dealing with.
There are blog posts that I’ve started to write and just given up on, mainly because I don’t have it in me to police the comments that would come out because of them. It feels like the coward’s way out, but I have to make some concessions for my sanity.
While I’m generally pretty good at giving other people advice, in some ways I’m very bad at taking my own advice. I know I would be telling me to go easy on myself, for all the reasons I’ve already listed. But at the same time, what are my other options? I already took a few weeks off from writing at various points over quarantine. I don’t like not writing. It makes me feel like I’m failing. (In many ways, writing is like exercising. I don’t like the act itself, but it feels great to have done it each day.)
This post doesn’t have much of a point, other than to complain. Though wait. Strike that. I think my point would be to remember two things. First, that we are all going through different difficult stages of this pandemic, often at different times. We’re all getting worn out, for a variety of reasons. And at the same time, we’re also all perhaps less patient with each other than we might be under normal circumstances. This makes it doubly important to push through that knee-jerk inclination to tell people exactly what we think of what they’re doing or saying, and instead treat everyone with a softer touch.
Including ourselves.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 9, 2020
2020 Election: Rigged or Not?
So here we are. As someone who has been vocally against Trump since the Republican primaries in 2016, I’m naturally more than a little pleased that he lost the election. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I’m also not shocked that he’s not conceding. That’s never really been in his nature, and I think it’s fairly likely that he will go to his grave insisting the 2020 elections were rigged, and that the Democrats cheated to get him out.
The real question for me is what Trump’s supporters will do about it.
Again, for many of them, I think they’re going to continue to believe the election was rigged, regardless of what happens. And let me be clear: I have no interest in having Biden win due to shenanigans. I believe in a fair and free election. I also believe that’s what we had in 2020, but I am open to any actual evidence that comes to light indicating this wasn’t the case. Note, however, that I’m looking for actual evidence. Not conspiracy memes. Not claims. Not hearsay. For Trump really to have lost due to a rigged election, what would have had to happen?
In Arizona, there’s a 20,000 vote difference at the moment.In Nevada, it’s 35,000 votes.Georgia has about 10,000 more votes for Biden.Pennsylvania has around 45,000.In Michigan, 145,000.In Wisconsin, 20,000 votes separate them.
So let’s assume for the moment that the Democrats really did decide to rig the election, and that they conspired to turn multiple states against Trump using fake ballots or voting in the name of dead people. They’d want to do it in multiple states, mind you, because it’s not as if they’d know ahead of time just how many fake ballots they’d have to submit to overcome the deficit. Then again, I suppose they could have churned out new fake ballots to overcome the deficit after the fact? Do that in key states, and then voila! Biden wins.
I think it’s likelier that they’d rig the election after the fact rather than ahead of time. It would be simpler and more likely to succeed. So let’s say, as Trump is saying, that as the election results came in, the Democrats decided to submit phony ballots in just enough states to make Trump lose. It would have to be in the close states, since they were the ones that were still up in the air for days. The easiest would be Pennsylvania, right?
45,000 votes don’t just magically appear out of nowhere. That’s a substantial chunk of ballots you’ve got to fabricate. And then you have to do it in a way that you won’t get caught. Because all those voters are on record as having voted. You can go back after the fact and check to see if they’re, you know . . . living.
And from what I can see, the Trumpers are out in force, trying to find proof of just that. That’s their right. I’m skeptical they’ll be successful, for a couple of reasons:
If the Democrats did, indeed, “fix” the election, they did a horrendous job of it. They fell short of controlling the senate in a few key races. If they have the wherewithal to influence the presidential vote, why didn’t they fix the senatorial vote while they were at it?All the claims of voter fraud that have come forward at the moment have been disproven. I have yet to read of a single case of it actually happening this year.All the claims of shady counting have been disproven as well. The Trumpers have brought the cases to court, and the cases have been uniformly dismissed. The closest they’ve come to a whiff of evidence is that counters in Philadelphia weren’t as close to the actual counting as the Trump team would have liked. Six feet away instead of closer. Why six feet away? I don’t know. Six feet apart. Where have I heard that before? Maybe the counters didn’t want to have to risk their lives more than they had to, just so they could process some ballots.The root of most of these allegations come from people who have generally played loose with the facts (to say the least) for the last four years. I see no reason to suddenly start giving them the benefit of the doubt.
But fine. They claim fraud. I say prove it. Voter fraud is illegal. If it’s happening, there will be evidence, and they can (and should) take the weasels to court. In the meantime, we’ve got a pandemic that’s raging even more out of control. One that didn’t disappear magically when the election finished. So excuse me for being a bit more concerned about the future of my country than I am about something that so far is nothing but hot air.
We’re getting over a hundred thousand COVID cases a day in America, with a positivity test rate of 8% nationally, with some states over 15%, and some way higher than that, according to Johns Hopkins. South Dakota is at 53%! The fatality rate worldwide for identified COVID cases is around 3%. (Yes, some have pointed out it’s actually lower than this, because we don’t find everyone who has COVID, but that goes both ways. The fact is, 3% of the people who tested positive for COVID and had an official “result” have ended up dead. If those numbers hold for America, then 3,000 of those 100,000 people are going to die in a few weeks. Each day. Yes, there’s positive results coming out about some of the vaccine potentials, but remember, those are months away from being widely available.
We don’t have time to be dilly dallying with more puffed up accusations. If there’s such rampant voter fraud, then drag out the evidence and let’s move on. But remember, Trump claimed millions of people voted illegally in 2016. He created an advisory commission to look into it. They ended up finding nothing.
Democrats have (most likely) lost their shot at controlling the Senate. They performed much worse in many races than they hoped to. And yet all these Democrats are accepting defeat, acknowledging their losses, and moving on. There are no claims about illegal votes in Florida or other places where the results were surprising.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 6, 2020
My Life as a Loud Speaker
I’m not sure when, exactly, I became a loud speaker, but I do know that from at least post high school on, I’ve always seemed to talk louder than average. I didn’t really become aware of it as a steady sort of thing until I married Denisa, who is not as loud of a speaker.
The thing is, I just always speak “normally,” and I didn’t even think that my normal speaking voice would be anything to take into consideration. Of course, when you start speaking around a sleeping baby, you quickly are reminded of the fact that maybe you might be talking a few decibels louder than your wife. Especially if your wife worked really hard at getting that baby to sleep in the first place . . .
Of course, the question becomes why I speak so loudly. Some of it is possibly because I was in drama as a kid, so I learned how to project. But I think a lot of it is that I just tend to increase the volume whenever I get into a discussion that I care about. It’s not that I’m getting angry (at least, not that I realize), but the more passionate I am about something, the more likely it is that I’ll be more . . . “easily heard,” shall we say? Yesterday Denisa and I were talking about the pronunciation of Kamala Harris and comparing it to the pronunciation I’d used on my blog (“Comma-la”). You get two linguistic majors going on a debate about vowel sounds, and apparently you better be ready for some real back and forth. (Long story short, I realized there’s a dialectic difference in the way Denisa and I pronounce those two words. One that I can’t hear but she can. Go figure.)
Maybe I have a tendency to want to be right when I’m having a debate, and maybe my natural inclination is to speak louder when I think my rightness might be threatened . . .
But it’s not just speaking louder in person. When I’m on the phone, I’m a notorious loud talker, even when I try to lower my voice. (I’m also a pacer on the phone. I will wander all over the house, talking and talking in my phone voice, and disturbing all sorts of family members in the process. Aren’t I considerate?)
This isn’t to say that I’m right and everyone who thinks I speak too loudly is wrong. It’s to observe that sometimes we do things without meaning to that end up affecting others in ways we can’t immediately understand. When those tendencies are brought to our attention, we have a choice. We can ignore other people and do what we’ve always done anyway, or we can try to change.
Honestly, there are probably some areas where I would continue doing what I’ve always done. But how loud I speak? That’s just not that important to me. I’m doing it without even thinking about it in the first place. So I would gladly lower my voice, but I’ve also discovered that willfully trying to change in areas like this is about as easy as deciding not to slouch. It doesn’t come easily.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion for today is this: there are things many of us do that affect others. If they’re making life more difficult for others, it’s worth assessing them to see if we could stop doing those things. On the flip side, we should also be understanding that changing some things is difficult for the person who’s making the effort, and so we need to be understanding that it’s a process. (Note: I’m worried this is coming off like Denisa and I had this huge argument about how loud I talk yesterday. That isn’t the case at all. Just another instance of something happening in everyday life sparking a thought in me, and me blogging about that thought, trying to reach a conclusion._
What other areas do you see this happening, whether in yourself or in others?
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 5, 2020
Things More Worthwhile than Refreshing the News
This might be more a post for me than for you, though I’m guessing some of you could use the reminder as well. As I sit here fighting the urge to compulsively refresh the voting totals in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, I’m reminded that up until today, most people would scoff at anyone who became seriously invested in watching a snail race. And yet here I am, doing essentially that and somehow feeling like if I turn away, I’m going to miss some thrilling action.
I might as well start watching paint dry, for all the good this is doing me. What good is knowing what happens five minutes before my friends if it comes at the cost of being glued to results for three solid days or more?
Of course, it would be easier for me to step away from the results if I didn’t have a job that required me to be online most of the time. Especially since we’re still in the middle of a pandemic, and I’m still working from home as we wait for Tomas to get out of precautionary quarantine.
Think about how much good we could get done as a nation if we stopped worrying about the results and instead devoted all that time to something else. It’s been around 42 hours since the polls started closing. In that amount of time, we could have
Binge watched the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy more than three timesRead the whole Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit around 1.5 timesBe three quarters of the way through all the James Bond movies, in honor of Sean ConneryHiked almost a sixth of the Appalachian TrailBaked more than 3,000 chocolate chip cookies (a dozen at a time)Eaten more than 5,000 chocolate chip cookies. (Then again, I might have done that and watched the results at the same time. Don’t judge.)Done more than 84 crosswordsStacked about 42 cords of woodGotten the majority of the country to understand how to pronounce Kamala Harris’s name. (It’s Comma-la, folks. Comma-la. Think of the punctuation mark, and you’re halfway there.)Listened to Stairway to Heaven over 300 times
And those are just off the top of my head. The bottom line is that maybe I should cut back from refreshing every minute to something more healthy, like refreshing once an hour, or even once every couple of hours. (The horror!)
Then again, I also recognize it would be in my best interest to floss every day, get a full night’s sleep, avoid candy all the time, and sit up straight instead of slouching. My track record with those hasn’t been stellar either, so maybe I just need to lower my expectations.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been at least fifteen minutes since I checked the tallies in Georgia. They might have counted four more ballots already, and I won’t know until I go check!
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 4, 2020
How I’m Feeling: 2020 Election Aftermath
Like many of you, I’m pretty bleary eyed today. I went to bed around 11:30pm, but it took quite some time to fall asleep (and a whole lot of willpower to resist the urge to check my phone again for new results). Today, much of my down time has been spent refreshing news pages to see the latest updates. Not like it does a whole lot, but it somehow feels somewhat reassuring to know the latest about what’s going on.
Of course, all of this is proof that I was spectacularly wrong yesterday when I thought we’d have a pretty good idea who won by not too late in the night. Now it’s looking like we won’t have concrete answers until Friday
That said, you’ll recall that yesterday I indicated there would be one of four outcomes:
The polls this year are accurate. In that case, Biden has a strong win: 319 to 219 according to RealClearPolitics.The polls this year are skewed in Trump’s favor, meaning the reality favors Biden even more. If that’s the case, then this is a landslide victory for Biden. 375 electoral votes or more wouldn’t be out of the question.The polls this year are skewed in Biden’s favor. But even if they’re off by 2016 proportions, that’s still not enough for Trump to win. I think Biden would squeak out a win with around 275 electoral college votes.The polls are just plain wrong. Either the pollsters significantly underestimated how many Republicans would turn up to vote, or the “shy Trump voters” are really a thing and have been consistently lying to pollsters. This is the one way Trump wins at this point. It will take something much more than typical polling errors.
Where are we today? Well, definitely not the second outcome, otherwise this post would be a very different one. But at the same time, I don’t think we’re as much in the fourth outcome as you might think, despite the fact that we’re still here scratching our heads. Of the states that are still too close to call, here’s how I read the lay of the land:
Georgia–Trump is up by 83,000 votes, with about 200,000 votes to go. To make up that split, those votes would have to favor Biden 70% to 30%. For a state where Trump is leading 50% to 49%, how likely is that? There’s actually a decent shot. The bulk of them come from DeKalb and Fulton County, which are voting for Biden 83% and 72%. These are absentee ballots, so they’re even likelier to be skewed more than that. The question is how many of the votes from elsewhere in the state might dilute the strong Biden vote. The New York Times gives Biden a 64% shot of winning. We should have a lot more clarity on this by the end of the day. Georgia was a toss up going into today according to the polls, and it’s still a toss up. Go figure.North Carolina–I honestly don’t see Biden pulling off an upset here. Biden’s down by 80,000 votes, with around 290,000 estimated votes to go. Biden would have to win the remaining votes by around 65%, if my math is right. Then again, the bulk of the outstanding ballots are once again from Democrat leaning areas, where he’s pulling anywhere from 60-75% of the vote. So it’s possible it still swings to Biden, but I certainly wouldn’t hold by breath. The New York Times gives Trump an 86% chance of holding on.Alaska–Trump’s up with 63% of the vote, and he was favored to win it at the beginning of the night, with 85% odds. As far as I’m concerned for now, this is already Trump’s. The only reason it’s not red right now on everyone’s maps is because only 45% of the vote is in.Nevada–Biden only has an 8,000 vote lead, with around 200,000 votes still to count. These aren’t absentee ballots that skew heavy to Biden, however. These are votes that were mailed and received yesterday or later. Also, because Nevada apparently doesn’t like counting cards, they’re not going to start counting those until tomorrow. (Boo!) Still, for Trump to come from behind here, he’d have to win 52% of the remaining votes(!) That’s much more close than I’m comfortable with. The silver lining is that the vast bulk of these votes come from Biden leaning areas: Clark County and Washoe County. Biden’s up in Washoe with 51% and in Clark with 53%, with around 85% of the vote in. Still, if these are dominantly Trump votes, it’s in the realm of possibility that the state flips. Not hugely likely, but still . . . Fox News gives Biden a 75% shot of holding on.Michigan–Right now, Biden is up in Michigan by 37,000 votes, with about 340,000 votes to go. Seem good for Trump, right? Except the missing votes are both absentee (which skew Biden) and from Wayne, Kalamazoo, and Kent Counties. True, Kent is going to Trump right now, but the missing votes are from Grand Rapids there, which skew (you guessed it) heavy to Biden. Biden’s up in Wayne with 67% of the vote and in Kalamazoo with 54%. Fox News pegs Michigan with a 95% chance of going Biden, and I agree with them. We should know tonight, I hope.Pennsylvania–Ah, my home state. Trump is up by 393,000 votes, with about 1.2 million to go. To overcome that gap, Biden needs around 65% of the votes. Where are they missing? You guessed it: primarily Biden-leaning counties like Philadelphia (78% for Biden right now) and Allegheny (55% for Biden). There are many missing votes out still, and it’s hard to get a real read on the situation, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Biden ending up in the lead when the dust settles. Arizona–As a footnote, there’s AZ, which has been called by some places (including Fox News). The Trump camp insists they can come back here, but I don’t see it. They’re down by about 95,000 votes, with about 450,000 votes to go. To make up that difference, they need to win about 65% of the vote, give or take. The bulk of the missing votes are in Pima County and Maricopa County. Biden is up there by 60% and 52%, respectively. Looking at exit polls and taking into account the projections already made by others, I think this is a real stretch for Trump, but he’s insisting it’s possible to give credence to his other arguments. We should know by tonight.
So when you look at all these races still to be decided, the deck is definitely stacked against Trump. Could he still come from behind? I suppose anything’s possible, but I think it’s very telling that one side of this election is arguing to keep counting votes, and the other one is sending lawyers to try and find votes they can ignore. When I watched CNN this morning, they were focused on the numbers of the votes. When I watched Fox, they were talking about where Trump might sue, and how wrong the pollsters were. One side is definitely telegraphing “we’re in trouble,” and it ain’t Biden.
So how do I feel? Cautiously optimistic. Hoping to know more by this evening, even as I rage at Nevada for being way too slow to count votes. (And Pennsylvania. Come on, guys!)
How are *you* feeling?
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
November 3, 2020
Election 2020: What I Think Will Happen Tonight
Look at that! We somehow made it to election day without a gigantic meteor blasting the world into oblivion. I had my doubts, because 2020, but here we are. After months (and years) of waiting, we finally get to start seeing how this is all going to play out.
A few disclaimers before I go into talking about what I personally think will happen tonight. First, I am far from an expert. I’m not a political scientist. I have no formal training in statistics or the intricacies of polling. On the other hand, I *am* a trained information professional, so I consider myself pretty good at identifying quality information and sifting through that information to reach conclusions. And I am also very, very well read for this election. I’ve regularly been on a variety of sites since January, including FiveThirtyEight, CNN, Fox News, Drudge Report, and everything in between. In other words, I have not only been reading articles I already would tend to agree with.
And from everything I’ve read, there are basically a few ways tonight will go down. Biden is up significantly in the polls, but the polls are typically off by a bit, sometimes a fair bit. So let’s run through the possibilities one at a time:
The polls this year are accurate. In that case, Biden has a strong win: 319 to 219 according to RealClearPolitics.The polls this year are skewed in Trump’s favor, meaning the reality favors Biden even more. If that’s the case, then this is a landslide victory for Biden. 375 electoral votes or more wouldn’t be out of the question.The polls this year are skewed in Biden’s favor. But even if they’re off by 2016 proportions, that’s still not enough for Trump to win. I think Biden would squeak out a win with around 275 electoral college votes.The polls are just plain wrong. Either the pollsters significantly underestimated how many Republicans would turn up to vote, or the “shy Trump voters” are really a thing and have been consistently lying to pollsters. This is the one way Trump wins at this point. It will take something much more than typical polling errors.
Of course, there’s been a lot of fuss made over just how long it’s going to take us to find out who won. Weeks or months have been bandied around. The good news is that in most scenarios, I don’t think that’s going to be the case, and we should know fairly early on which scenario we’re in, since the polling has been so steady. Many of the states are well into counting their absentee ballots, and so we’ll have pretty solid totals within a few hours of polls closing. Those results will point to which reality we’re dealing with. If the polls are accurate or skewed a normal amount, Biden wins, though it may take a while to get there if they’re skewed more.
Just look at this map and play around with the results for a bit. (This page gives you an overview of when to expect final results for each state, and CNN has a guide for when polls close and what sort of results we’ll have for them.) On that first map I linked to, you can check off who’s won each state and see what that does to the probabilities overall for Trump or Biden. Kentucky and Indiana close their polls first, but they’re both heavily favored to vote for Trump. If he takes them both, his odds just go from 10% to 11%. Georgia closes at 7pm, and that’s a much bigger horse race. The good news is that they’ve already been counting absentee ballots, and so we’ll have pretty reliable numbers out of them quite quickly. If Trump wins Georgia, his odds jump up to 24%. Not a disaster for Biden, but still significant. If, on the other hand, Biden wins the state, then his odds jump to higher than 99%.
Why is that? Going into tonight, 538 only gives Biden a 58% chance of winning Georgia. He’s slightly favored, but not by much. He’s up by about 1% in poll averages on 538, and down by 1% over on RealClearPolitics. If he actually does win, that will indicate polling is generally accurate or in Biden’s favor this election cycle, which shows us which of the options we’re dealing with above.
Of course, if it’s really really close in Georgia, then we won’t be able to have a real result to rely on, and it will provide us with no insights one way or the other. So are there other states we can watch? Sure. North Carolina or Ohio. Florida (obviously). The list goes on. All it takes is to get reliable numbers in any one of the closer states for the rest to likely snap into focus. If we see the picture remaining hazy, that’s a bad sign for a quick decision.
Personally, I think we’ll see some toss ups go to Biden tonight, and I don’t think it’s going to end up being that close. Trump managed to eke out a win in 2016 primarily by being a political unknown and by racing against a very unpopular woman. This year, he’s anything but unknown when it comes to his politics, and Biden is much more likeable, and a male. I think the only thing keeping everyone on the edge of their seat is 2016 and the shock many felt when Trump won. The pollsters don’t want to get caught with their pants down, and so they’re taking pains to remain cautious.
I remember in 2012 when it was Romney vs. Obama that the Republicans were saying all the same things they’re saying now. Republicans were supposedly being underrepresented in the polls. It was all skewed to Obama. Romney would win easily. All of that, of course, turned out to be hogwash, and that was in a much closer election. The thought that there are legions of “shy Trump voters” strains the imagination. I drank the Kool-aid in 2012. I’m passing on it today.
Some of this might be because I want this over and done with. If it’s not close, there’s no prolonged legal battles. No basis for wild accusations of cheating. (Though I anticipate those regardless.) The odds say I’m right, but this is 2020, so . . . I’m probably wrong. Either way, it should be an interesting evening.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
