Bigly Bad Winning
Written By Elizabeth Moon.
Wednesday, December 9, the United States distinguished itself once more as the World Wide Leader in Covid-19 deaths, by piercing the daily-death ceiling of 3000 in one day. That is, the officially recorded deaths. 3,053. Three thousand fifty-three individuals who were alive this time last year, last month, and up until they got Covid.
We have thirty counties in Texas with a smaller population than 3,053* and 236 of our 254 counties have a smaller population than the US Covid-19 deaths overall, 290,000.* Had the whole weight of this fallen on a single Texas county, only eighteen of them would’ve had survivors left to tell the tale. So much winning.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, a former member of our church choir came to our weekly Zoom meeting that same evening to report that her new choir (in Nelson, South Island) was about to have a short rehearsal and choir dinner, and would be performing in the city center twelve times during the holidays. Schools, stores, businesses, churches, are all open…no Covid closures because they don’t have Covid cases now. Personally, I’d call that winning and our government losers.
This post made me think of Jenny, the wonderful Austin woman we met when we booked her airbnb spare room when we went to Keara’s 2013 UT graduation. She and Ian were leaving for NZ the day we left their house. We spent way too much of their packing time making friends, lol! Lucky them, they are still in NZ, living a normal life.
1I truly wish my spousal unit and I weren’t over the age limit for NZ immigration; this article makes me quite sad. I am missing my choir – rehearsals, gatherings, Advent Lessons and Carols,… to the point of tears.
That is the one truth he told in 2016….I AM tired of all this “winning”.
2I have a friend, who was in IT in San Francisco, who was vacationing with his wife in NZ in March when the lockdown hit. So they were stuck there. Took a look around and decided that they wanted to stay permanently. They both got temporary work permits and are working on permanent residency. Funny how life turns out sometimes, isn’t it?
3fenway fran: Small World Moment!! Same person! Jenny is just amazing, isn’t she? She was such fun in our choir in Austin, and I feel lucky to have heard about her first meeting with Ian–I was going to NZ’s national SF convention, and knowing she was visiting NZ for another reason asked if she’d like to experience the convention with me. She met Ian at *her* big meeting. She and I had a blast at the convention and got a special tour of Weta Workshop (where I was allowed to actually handle Aragorn’s sword from the LOTR movies and we went bonkers over many other things…) and then we rode down to Christchuch South Island together on the ferry & train.
Anyway, it’s been great to have Jenny “back” via Zoom meetings with the choir, but we here are so envious of her being able to sing in her new group. She’s also an outstanding indy editor for anyone who wants one…not one of the fake ones but one who can work at any level from copy editing down to concept development, nonfiction or fiction.
4Larry Wilmore’s podcast “Black On The Air” recently had Fareed Zakaria on his book: ‘Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World’. It was edifying to say the least. And it can be found wherever you get your favorite podcasts…
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