But a paper published on Tuesday in The BMJ (formerly The British Medical Journal) argues that the six-foot rule is an oversimplification descended from 19th-century science. Instead of single, fixed distancing rules, the authors propose graded guidelines to better reflect the many factors that determine how dangerous a given setting might be.

What does that mean in practical terms? The general scientific consensus, according to Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell and Elizabeth Cooney of Stat, is that indoors is riskier than outdoors, large groups are riskier than small groups and prolonged contact is riskier than brief contact. Loud talking, heavy breathing, singing and screaming also raise the risk of viral spread.

Happy Jean is happy.

Sports is big in this country. So big. I live near Boston, sports capital of the world. Athletes using their power to fight racism and injustice. This is a very, very good thing. This man was shot IN THE BACK seven times by police for leaning into his car, and the murderer in Kenosha was allowed to go home for the night before being arrested for MURDER. The police chief praised him for coming (from another state) to save their town’s businesses. I believe that’s why he was there. Wait, no I fucking don’t. He came ready to kill and kill he did and Fox News is also praising him. Am I in an alternate reality here? Is this 1930’s Germany? Ask the Germans how that worked out for them. WTF, America. From what I’ve read about the republican convention, there was nothing about what they plan to do for you or for the country, it was who they hate and fear and how you should hate and fear the same people. Hate and fear as a political agenda. In MY country. Anyway, here’s a bit from The New York Times:

“Professional sports seasons seemed in doubt, as athletes staged walkouts to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was partly paralyzed after a white police officer shot him in Kenosha, Wis., this week.”

Another thing that bothers me though, is rioting. When terrorists and suicide bombers and the like do their thing, does that make us feel bad and want to rectify whatever issue they think they are angry about? I don’t think so. I think it makes us hate them. When peaceful protests turn into burning and looting and smashing, how on earth does that help your cause? It just makes more people angry and convinces more people that you really are dangerous. I’m all for protesting, I’d be out there carrying signs if I was able, but I have to draw the line at deliberate destruction and harm. It serves no useful purpose. That’s just my opinion, I know, but it believe it is a good one.

On a health note, I am feeling much better today and even did a bit of cleaning, but I cannot stand up for more than a few minutes without pain. The rest of me almost feels human again, though, so yay.

Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

of US media. This is brilliant:

Unrest Continues…In Former British Colony

Well, one of them, anyway. I need to talk to someone. Not sure who, but thought maybe I’d start with my doctor and tell her how I’m feeling and see if there is anything to be done, or talk to the agency and see what are the possibilities of having someone come in to clean and all, because I am getting desperate. Problem is, my brain is not awake enough to have a coherent conversation until late afternoon, when it seems everyone has gone home already.. I cannot go on like this, though, because I am virtually incapable of doing anything physical. Some days I cannot even make the coffee. It’s all read, sleep, maybe stream something for a couple of hours. I do manage to feed the cat and put out fresh water and scoop the litter box. Where is my medal? I take my meds, including things that are supposed to help, like D-3 and magnesium lotion (when I remember), tried eating more and better food. Nothing seems to make any difference. I am just kind of in limbo here, it sems. This is when I shut down more and more, and I know how unhealthy it is, but I really hate feeling helpless and hopeless. I need to do something. I just don’t have any idea what.

One thing I could do, is stop reading my email first thing, because reading the Times and Daily Kos and other newsletters first thing is just too depressing. And don’t even mention Twitter. Bad news, bad news, bad news. I will get myself out of this, I always do eventually, but meanwhile, frustrated Jean is extremely frustrated, and angry at the world.

Reps won’t extend Covid-19 Relief

If you are evicted, you are homeless, and homeless people cannot vote. Hmmmm, do I see a pattern here?

From Twitter: Notice there is no name calling or doomsday predictions here, just facts.
**Robert Reich
@RBReich
·
19h
Your reminder that the richest 1 percent own half of the stock market, and the richest 10 percent own almost all (92 percent) of it.

So when Trump brags about the stock market, he’s not talking about the economy that 90 percent of Americans inhabit.**

**Bernie Sanders
@SenSanders
·
3h
$5,200,000,000 a day.

$36,600,000,000 a week.

$731,800,000,000 in 5 months.

That’s how much the collective net worth of 467 billionaires grew during a pandemic that has cost 30 million jobs and 176,000 lives.**

**Bernie Sanders
@BernieSanders
·
2h
Never forget. While Trump and the Republican Senate denied hazard pay to essential workers, their tax plan allowed Amazon to pay nothing in federal income taxes after making $29 billion in profits. Yes. Trump loves socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for everyone else.**

**Bernie Sanders
@SenSanders
·
Aug 23
Federal Minimum Wage in 2009: $7.25/hr
Federal Minimum Wage in 2020: $7.25/hr

Total Wealth of U.S. Billionaires in 2009: $1.27 trillion
Total Wealth of U.S. Billionaires in 2020: $3.63 trillion

Our job: Tax the rich and increase the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.**

**Joe Walsh
@WalshFreedom
·
Aug 24
If you say that Donald Trump is unfit to be President and then refuse to vote for the ONLY person who can beat Donald Trump, then you don’t really believe Donald Trump is unfit to be President.**

Reading this:
Paid For Time to Vote

We have days off work to celebrate different things, why not a national day off so people can vote without consequences, like losing pay?

From Twitter.

On another note, I fell in the shower today. I have never fallen. Actually, I was having trouble stepping out of the tub, because back pain is fun people, and the tub mat slipped. Down I went. Cracked my head on the tub, but am fine several hours later. Goose egg on head, which I iced after the fall, and does not hurt. Meanwhile, I am baking a shepherd’s pie from the Centerville Pie Company on Cape Cod. It is sold locally and my grocery-shopping friends picked it up for me today. They make single serve sort of hand pies, too. I have had the breakfast ones with sausage, egg, and cheese, and they are very tasty. Not an ad, just looking forward to real food. I am so over open box eat contents, but it is really hard to manage much else right now. I didn’t check the ingredients, but I believe it’s shepherd’s pie if it’s minced lamb, and cottage pie if it’s beef. Hmmm. Looked good frozen, so am hopeful.

Vote people. Please vote them out. They are ruining us. Deliver your ballot in person to your local town offices or wherever if at all possible, because they are doing everything they can to prevent your vote from getting there to be counted. This is the most disgraceful conduct I can possibly imagine happening right here in our own country, not some third-world dictatorship. The United States of America. I am beyond astounded that people actually want to vote for them. I do not understand that mind set, except that he has given the haters permission to do it openly. It’s okay to mock disabled people, and persecute those you don’t like and probably fine to beat your wife and children, and some of us are just loving that. Good grief. Please fight back.

Besides me feeling like seriously big trucks have run over me many times, that is. I am wondering if I did have the virus in December and am suffering from aftereffects. I doubt I’ll ever know, but I am really over feeling like this. Day before yesterday I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, with a long rest between the two, and that was the first day in a week or more that I had that much physical wherewithal to do it. Yesterday I boiled eggs and made egg salad, another big accomplishment for me. If you are healthy, you cannot imagine what it’s like to be unable to do the most basic, easiest of tasks that most people don’t even have to think about. I was in too much pain and too exhausted to eat the egg salad after I made it, so had it a few hours later, after a long lie-down with my kindle.

From The Daily Kos

” Mail is going undelivered for no reason other than Trump’s postmaster general doesn’t want it delivered
As a result, Americans are going without vital medicine
Farmers are also suffering, losing thousands of chicks in the mail backlog Trump’s created
Meanwhile, Trump is threatening to send law enforcement to polling locations on Election Day
And universities are closing within weeks of reopening as the coronavirus continues to spread out of control

This week in Trump’s America was a series of crises of his own making. But Senate Republicans took no action to address them. They didn’t even come to Washington. Instead, they continued a summer recess as Mitch McConnell cast doubt on whether they’d ever do anything at all.”

*****I honestly cannot understand why anyone would vote for these people, and yet it seems that many of us plan to. Scary. Very, very scary.*****

From GQ, things said about the orange man before these guys drank the kool-aid.

Paul Ryan

On Trump’s proposed Muslim ban: “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for, and more importantly it’s not what this country stands for. Not only are there many Muslims serving in the armed forces, dying for this country, there are Muslims serving right here in the house, working to uphold and defend the constitution.”

On Trump’s refusal to denounce the KKK: “If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.”

Marco Rubio

“We’re on the verge of having someone take over the conservative movement who is a con artist.”

“I mean this is a guy that’s taken Trump airlines bankrupt. Trump vodka, nobody wanted it. Trump mortgage, was a disaster. Trump university was a fraud.”

“Has spent a career of sticking it to working people.”

“This boiling point that we have now reached has been fed largely by the fact that we have a frontrunner in my party who has fed into language that basically justifies physically assaulting people who disagree with you.”

“I believe Donald Trump as our nominee is going to shatter and fracture the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”

The most “vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.”

Chris Christie

“It’s not going to happen. It’s the wrong message to send, and it’s not going to be effective. Always beware of the candidate for public office who has the quick and easy answer to a complicated problem.”

“We do not need to endorse that type of activity, nor should we. You do not need to be banning Muslims from the country. That’s, in my view, that’s a ridiculous position and one that won’t even be productive.”

“Showtime is over. We are not electing an entertainer-in-chief. Showmanship is fun, but it is not the kind of leadership that will truly change America.”

Ted Cruz

“Utterly amoral.”

“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.”

“A narcissist at a level that I don’t think this country has ever seen.”

“A serial philanderer.” (Source)

He “describes his battle with venereal disease as his own personal Vietnam.”

Carly Fiorina

“Donald, sorry, I’ve got to interrupt again. You would know something about pathological.”

“Donald Trump reminds me of the Kim Kardashian of politics.”
Lindsey Graham

“The more you know about Donald Trump, the less likely you are to vote for him. The more you know about his business enterprises, the less successful he looks. The more you know about his political giving, the less Republican he looks.”

“You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. … He’s the ISIL man of the year.”

*****And suddenly, it is pouring rain. Yes!!!! :)*****

1. How’s your health this week?

Pain, fatigue, hobbling around with my cane, sleeping a lot. In other words, same old same old.

2. What’s the healthiest thing you’ve done recently?

Went for a ride with a friend. Wore masks, windows open. Had not been outside except for the fire alarm since March 11th. Was kind of getting to me, and this helped a lot.

3. What do you look for in a doctor?

Someone who actually listens and responds to what I say, not just writes things down on the laptop.

4. What was your most memorable childhood illness?

I remember having the mumps, and my mom going shopping and leaving me home alone, which I thought was fantastic. Besides, she bought me something nice while she was out.

5. What’s your most interesting scar and how did you get it?

I have a small dent just below my knee from when I jumped off a fence and landed on a board with a nail sticking up. Friend and I walked to her kitchen where her older sister promptly looked after me, and then I fainted. My parents came and took me to the ER so I could get a tetanus shot, but I don’t remember the injury even hurting. It was all very exciting.

when it’s time to vote, which it is. These are from The Guardian

‘Americans struggle to survive after benefits expire as millions are left to rely on state unemployment benefits while waiting on Trump’s reduced federal benefits of $400 a week to begin’

‘Trump’s attacks already undermining confidence in vote by mail
Voters are calling election offices concerned about whether vote-by-mail ballots will count. Some are cancelling requests for them’

This is exactly what he wants. You’re less likely to vote if it’s inconvenient, which voting by mail is NOT. So fewer voters mean more votes for him, and you get four more years of destruction of democracy, and possibly eviction and hunger and is this what you want for your children? Really, is it? Vote, just do it. Get those ballots and take then to your local election office in person if you don’t trust the mail. The mail worked fine until the Trump-appointed Postmaster General started messing with it in order to make it harder to vote.

Here’s what’s happening because people thought that exact thing last election.

‘A federal judge blocked a Trump administration rule to erase protections for transgender patients against discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies.’

‘The Trump administration finalized plans yesterday to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development. The decision ends six decades of protections for the refuge, the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States.’

‘The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill became the first big university to move in-person classes online after new coronavirus outbreaks. Just one week into the semester, 177 students had tested positive, and hundreds of others were in quarantine because of possible exposure.’

‘Kristin Urquiza, Arizona student who wrote an impassioned obituary for her father that offered two causes of death: the coronavirus and ineptitude on the part of government officials.
Her most memorable line last night, speaking about her father: “His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.” ‘

Re the virtual convention: ‘Slightly more inspiring than the Republican convention theme, ‘Gas protesters and throw mailboxes into the sea.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT’

My oh my oh my. After having a brief meltdow in an email to a friend last night, she called today and I actually went out. We went for a ride, had a frozen coffee and Dunkin’s and sat in the car with the doors open and the breeze blowing and chatted, just like normal life. Hoping this lasts me for a while because five months of this was getting to me. I went six months before, but I was very ill at the time. Am not ill now, just the back issue and the usual fibro, so five months of nothing was getting pretty hard to take. So thank you, my friend. Thank you. Lots of sanitizing and disinfected everything, keys, phone, glasses, wallet, and washed face mask upon returning home. Changed clothes, too. Caution, always caution. It is a beautiful, blue skies white fluffy clouds day, and being out amongst the greenery of nature in summer was just heaven. Happy Jean is happy.

Something funny:Cherished Cinema Classics

The breeze that is blowing in my windows smells good. Like nature. Not an autumny, shuffle through the leaves smell, but there is a tinge of that there. It’s a good thing. After circling the black hole, yesterday, today, thanks to my very good friend, is a very good day. Situational depression.

from The Root, about a Georgia State Trooper being arrested for felony murder after shooting a black man. ‘…one has to assume that “I was in fear for my life” is written somewhere in the Cop’s Guide to Killing Black People When it Clearly Wasn’t Necessary.’

And there’s this:
Republicans want to break you

I personally think they just want to kill us all off.

Major change in the weather. Barely 70 degrees, gray, windy. Nice cool breeze blowing straight in my north-facing windows. Now for some rain please, Mother Nature.

And this:
How to save the post office
And don’t forget, the orange man himself is voting by mail. Watch what he does, not what he says. Which generally doesn’t make much sense anyway, from what I’ve read.

Here’s this:

I stole from here:Chronically Fabulous

I seem to be spiraling downwards, yet again. My friends are out going places and doing things, and seem to feel safe while doing them, and here I sit, barely able to walk, have not been outside (except briefly when we had the fire alarm) for five months. I feel like I have no life. It wasn’t so bad when I could actually do things, like clean and cook, but now it’s mainly reading, sleeping, the occasional streaming watch. And I find myself already dreading winter. The days are already much shorter on the evening end, and by the winter solstice, the day will be around nine hours long. It’s around 15 hours long on the summer solstice. Depression is not fun, and add to this the whole ‘my country is being deliberately destroyed and no one is doing a damn thing to stop it’ thing, and the rise of all sorts of bad things happening that aren’t even pandemice or orange man-related, and I can see that black hole just sitting there waiting for me to spiral right on in. Been there, done that, was really hard to climb back out and do not want to ever go there again. But I am at a loss as to what to do to change things in my own life, let alone anything else. I had clinical depression once, but that’s a different issue. It’s caused by a screw-up in your brain chemistry, I believe, and you really need drugs to help you through it. I have situational depression. Have had it off and on since I first came down with this lovely illesss. You feel helpless, hopeless, unable to function, alone, abandoned, all the bad things you can think of, and then something happens to change things a bit, and suddenly you are better. I just can’t think of anything that might change, anything I can change. I will. Never give up, never surrender, right? All I have to do is get through this.

My eldest DD thinks her family may have been exposed to the virus, and today, my chances just went up. You know how when you are stressed, exhausted and in pain because of a chronic, debilitating illness, a bunch of morons running your government, and back pain, among other things; your brain kind of goes on sabatical? Well, today, my temp homemaker came back from the shopping with her mask on her chin. I did not even notice, til she remembered and pulled it up. I was wearing mine, cause I always do when I’m at the door, thanks to youngest DD who insisted that I keep one on the doorknob. No idea about the health of the homemaker, but she does not work anywhere else, like my other one did, but just the idea that I am not paying attention to things I need to pay attention to is not comforting. Most days I feel like I am barely hanging on by my fingernails, I cannot get done what needs doing, I keep falling asleep at random intervals, it is hot and muggy and I can’t use the a/c because I cannot close and then reopen the windows when it cools off, so they are just staying open. Usually bearable, but we are having some serious heat alerts going on the past few days. Bah! Also, humbug! I need to get my act together, but I don’t really seem able to right now. Going to the kitchen to fill my water bottle usually results in such exhaustion that I have to lie down on the couch for awhile to recover. Sometimes I fall asleep, though. Too many obstacles in life right now. I just want to be ‘normal’ and get things done and have fun and maybe, some day, go outside again. I am a firm believer in just playing the hand you are dealt to the best of your ability, but sometimes, I wish for a magic wand that would just fix everything. Anybody?

You know how hard it is to find a ‘it’s not going well’ picture? Found this instead: Me as a teenager.

I just signed a petition urging Sen. Ron Johnson to open an investigation into DeJoy’s conduct — and I think you should, too:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/trumps-postmaster-general-ousts-key-officials-ahead-of-election/

Partial quote from a NYT article on a motorcycle rally in South Dakota:

“If I die from the virus, it was just meant to be.”

No concern whatever for the people he might infect, the people he might kill. It’s not just about you, asshole. God. People just make me sick. Someone in my own town, on a newsboard, referred to the orange man as a ‘strong, American-loving president’. He must live in an alternate universe, and his post somehow crossed over through a rift in time and space. Yes, I do watch too much sci fi. But OMG, OMG, OMG. Found a lot of neat quotes looking for something to illustrate this post.

You all know about Beirut by now. Was scrolling through an email and glanced at this: ‘Lebanon’s information minister resigned on Sunday.’ and read it as ‘Lebanon’s misinformation minister resigned…..’ Made me laugh, anyway.

My back is slightly better today and I actually got a few, a very few but better than nothing, things done. Hot and icky, but staying in front of the fan as much as possible.

Hope you are all staying safe and wearing your masks. Don’t be morons, please. Other people’s lives are at stake, not just your own. Thank you.

I may have mentioned I have ditched Facebook and Instagram. Because.

Facebook and the Right Wing