363 compare and despair

Well shit. Looking at my phone, I've kinda got three subjects for today. They're all things I've talked about before, but really only one of them is something I'm excited about talking about. So we'll lede with that.

Mrs. Snake sent over this cute little buggy from Sweden. It's currently a Kickstarter.

It's an ebike, with four wheels. They're using the same name as my mom's pet mobility project, "pod." 

The skin appears to be fabric. I haven't seen that before, and I like it. It's thinking different.

This is Europe, so the power is provided by a mid-drive 250watt motor. It seems like kinda enough, anything this tall and narrow on four non-cambered wheels is likely to be pretty tippy. Don't want to go too fast.

 

You will be pedaling, so you'll be plenty warm, but there's also a heater to defrost things in the morning.

Dorky? Oh hell yeah. But I'd rather see the Bay Bridge half-filled with these than backed up with gas guzzlers.

So, I watch a fair amount of sailing videos. One of the youtubers I've gotten into recently is a channel called Sailing Ketch Starship. The guy bought a boat in Florida last summer and has fixed it up and sailed to the Keys. He spent a fair amount of time last fall traveling down the Intercoastal Waterway. 

He's not moving very quickly, and one of his catch phrases is, he'll be talking about this or that reason he has to go to shore, to buy a part, or get water, and then he'll throw in, "and maybe get a beer."

And while a lot of those beers have been on patios or whatnot, it's Florida, he's also taken us into a fair number of bars and clubs. Unmasked. In the middle of a pandemic.

And it's been, from the perspective of a locked down San Franciscan, an eye opener. Things be wide open in Florida.

Which must make one wonder. How, exactly, are California's death numbers basically the same as Florida and Texas? 

Two things occur to me. The Bay Area's response has been different than southern California, where most of the deaths have occurred. And a lot of those deaths have been in redder parts of the state, where maybe people didn't take the advisories so carefully. 

Still, it's something to think about. 

A while back, my step-mother-in-law sent a picture of about ten women bowling on her birthday. This is in Florida. One wore a mask. We asked why, and learned she was the only one who hasn't had Covid yet. 

So that's maybe part of it, too. Death is only one metric as far as disease spread. 

All I know is, if we had a president who came out with "wear a mask" last February, this whole thing would have gone very differently. I'm not convinced that at least part of our shut down wasn't a big FU to T45.

Sadly, I'm also not convinced that B46 is a detour away from fascism road. Just because the flavor is sweeter doesn't mean the police state apparatus is sugar.

Remember when all the progressive candidates got swept away so the really uninspiring guy who really seemed out of his element could win?

"When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reflect."

NPR=Nicer Propaganda, Right?

Our job at this point is to keep the pressure up. The wealth divide got bigger last year, by a lot.

Our government is throwing trillions around. Where's our health care?

On our toes, people. We're being played.

Speaking of plays, I'm taking this as a hopeful sign that musical theater will be allowed outdoors this year. (Pretty sure it would have been fine last year, but whatever. I did some good writing.)

At top, this building has been sitting empty in the Fillmore since they tore the neighborhood down in the sixties. There really aren't many derelicts left like this in the city. Twenty years ago, walking up Fillmore, I thought this couldn't stay run down much longer. But here we are.