The numbers may lead us astray

Now that we have spent a year staying away from people, fearing invisible enemies, learning to cope with the inconvenience of wearing masks in many situations, we have -- amazingly -- vaccines that promise to eventually eliminate most of the hospitalizations and deaths resulting from COVID-19 infections.

But people need to take the vaccines to change the national dynamic, with over 500,000 deaths behind us. 

When I read in today's Denver Post that only 29 percent of registered Republicans in Colorado say (in a survey, and I know these can be questionable) that they will NOT be vaccinated, that makes me sad for my neighbors, my friends, and my own family.

Sheer stubbornness and political tribalism might extend the scourge of the pandemic, if people simply refuse the most effective way to deal with this virus.

But I take hope in the reality that people often say one thing and do another. That's bad for pollsters but good for those of us who actually observe what happens around us.

For instance, my neighbor is a widowed Catholic Republican who has often expressed skepticism about everything from vaccines to who is really running our neighborhood HOA. 

A few weeks ago a neighbor from the other side of her house was outside helping this widow take down some holiday lights and I stepped over to help for a few minutes. Dick, her other neighbor, asked if I had had my shots yet and I was able to say we had our first shots scheduled. He has family in Longmont, and was combining a trip to see them with a quick trip to Fort Collins, where he has his own appointment for the vaccine. 

My neighbor just looked at us for a while and then said she was probably not getting the vaccine. She offered no argument and we didn't ask for one. But she did mention that one of her sons, who lives near San Diego, wanted her to visit but insisted that she quarantine for a week in a hotel before she could actually enter their house. 

Just a few days ago, my neighbor announced to me while we were getting mail that she was on several lists for the vaccine. 

Would she be among the 29 percent, as far as a survey goes? Probably. But she wants desperately to see her grandchildren and other family and that week of quarantine is not for her.

She will be getting the vaccine, grumbling all the way, I would guess, and looking forward to sharing tales of her adverse reaction in the future. She may use her pain and suffering to make her family feel guilty and to get some needed attention. But she will get her shots.

That connects to another story in today's paper that says a survey finds that nearly 70 percent of Republicans don't believe President Biden was legally elected, but that nearly 50 percent of Republicans approved of the recovery package that he is leading through the legislature.

People are more complex (and maddening) than polls can capture.

Lowering the bar to success clears the mind

Sticking with my exploration of saved posts and links from Facebook, a more recent save was from The Atlantic magazine, titled, "An Ode to Low Expectations."

It's brief and mostly about a moment from 30 years ago when the writer was feeling a bit down about things and about not meeting his own expectations, but mostly I time-traveled to long before the 1990s, and my father sharing this nugget: "Keep your expectations low and you will never be disappointed."

That's a very Midwestern thing to say, based on a mythology that life sucks, and then you die... but there ARE moments of joy and satisfaction, so hang in there. 

Any kid raised in Iowa in the 1950s knows this about life: Don't get too full of yourself and don't start thinking the victory is won. Life will soon remind you of reality.

I'm still a Hawkeye fan -- looking forward to watching both the Iowa men and women play Michigan later today, back-to-back, on TV -- but here's how I go into games like this, with Michigan being the favored team in both contests: We will likely give it a good go but we won't win. 

I will likely blame a combination of the referees and fate, along with the relatively small population that Iowa can draw on for athletes, and, for the women, the lack of fans screaming support and pulling the team through tough moments. It's nice to know how it is most likely to go. My low expectations won't keep me from watching and occasionally shouting at the screen. Hey, those young athletes need my help.

And if either (both? hush my mouth) team manages a win, the experience will be so much sweeter. 

I know this in my heart (and the heck with whether it is true or backed by science): as soon as I find myself expecting success or victory or a top mark or even a thank you, the precise opposite is going to happen. 

Interestingly, this does not make me depressed or pessimistic. I am open to the win.

I just think of the good results as gifts and the bad results as life's baseline.

Getting it right takes careful attention to details

I have a habit of seeing something that MIGHT be of further interest on Facebook and quickly hitting SAVE. I always promise myself that I will get right back to that item when I get a spare minute.

But I get caught up with something else and many times don't get back to my list of saved items for days.

There is something satisfying about cruising through those saved Facebook links and UNSAVING the majority. This is akin to the feeling we get when we can cross out items from our to-do lists. 

But here is an excerpt from a link to a post by one of my favorite writing experts, Roy Peter Clark, and it relates to something I have mentioned before about "getting the name of the dog" when reporting on an event. The entire post by RPC is here.

"...All this is prologue to a recent and quite startling example of this strategy from Michael Hardy, a Houston-based journalist writing for nymag.com. The headline of the Intelligencer column reads: “Ted Cruz abandons millions of freezing Texans and his poodle, Snowflake”

The column chronicles his drive to Cruz’s “uber-rich” neighborhood and his approach to the senator’s “white, Colonial Revival-style mansion.” He sees what appears to be in a window pane of the front door a white dog, apparently left behind after the senator went “jaunting off to Cancun with his family.”

The point of the advice about getting the name of the dog is that facts and details are important, and you never quite know how they might add something to a story or report. But read the entire post to see the wider implications and to encounter a limitation RPC found in the story as it was published.

I can't quite shake the image of poor Snowflake, shivering in a chilly house, forlornly waiting for the family to return to play with him/her. 

I'm part of the 6 percent club!

The estimate is that the vaccine reaches its full protection effects about two weeks after that second shot.

My wife and I had our second Pfizer shots this past Sunday, with some arm soreness for a day but no other flu-like symptoms, and we are looking at being able to at least consider some "normal" activities by March 8. 

I see that 5.89 percent of the country has had BOTH shots at this point, which seems like a "too small" number, but I can sense momentum. About 14 percent have had ONE shot, which seems like better news.

We are seriously considering starting to travel again, maybe to visit our grandsons in Seattle who we have not see in person since Christmas, 2019.

How about that? 

On the other hand, I found out that a 7th grade cousin of our granddaughters here in Denver tested positive and has cold-like symptoms. And one of our son-on-law's brothers and his wife have the virus. They live in Golden. The wife has lost taste and smell, and we hope that will pass soon.

And you still see stories of adults in the 40s who get the virus and end up going to the ER due to breathing problems, including a neighbor of our Denver daughter. 

The observation yesterday that the U.S. now has recorded over half a million deaths due to COVID-19 prompted some news stories and the White House held a memorial to honor the dead and all those living affected by those deaths. 

But I think of all those deaths as "just a number," I guess. No one in our families has died (thus far) of the virus. 

Just like "all politics is local," so is the case with grieving over premature deaths. If the deaths are not local, it's tough to fully engage the heart, at least for me. 

Millions are still boiling water in Texas, to cite another major crisis, and that seems more immediate to me since I have quite a few friends in Texas and they regularly have reported on their ruined floors and walls, their frozen pipes, their searching for water and food. 

It's all a good reminder of a key aspect of news: proximity. If it doesn't happen in my neighborhood, it's tough to get quite as fired up about it.

A surprising place to find great writing examples

If you are looking for writing models, consider reading obituaries -- believe it or not.

There are professional journalists whose job is to "pre-write" most of what will eventually be printed when someone well-known dies. Then the writer can focus on more timely quotes and details when the celebrity actually passes away.

There is an art to creating a quick biography, but some of that art lies in interviewing people in search of interesting anecdotes and memorable moments... not all that different from writing a memoir.

Here's a great paragraph from the New York Times obit for Cicily Tyson, who died at age 96 last week:

"Tyson had a remarkable physical presence, someone sculpted as much as born. Her body was dancer lithe. She seemed delicate. But only ‘seemed.’ She was delicate the way a ribbon of steel holds up its part of a bridge. The deceptive nature of her fineness was right there in the name. Cicely Tyson. Poise and punch."

The boldface is from me. What an amazing image. It's a comparison that is close to a metaphor, but it's the contrast between "ribbon" and "steel" that carries the weight here. The writer's point was that Ms. Tyson was anything but delicate.

Please also note the rhythm of this graf, with lots of short sentences, or "not even sentences." "Poise and punch" is not a "complete sentence, for instance, but the writer is using language to reinforce the major points. That "punch" plays with the accident of her last name being shared with a famous boxer, and seeing that is an assumption the writer made -- that most readers would "get it."

A good writer can break the rules, clearly, but the reason for breaking those rules has to serve the images and the readers. 

BREAKING NEWS: Politicians want YOU to do the right thing

So many politicians have been caught being hypocritical lately... and social media and cameras in every pocket or purse don't help them. Whether you are the mayor of Denver or Austin, or Ted Cruz, or the governor of California or of New York... someone will notice you doing precisely the opposite of what you ask of others.

My brain tells me that not all politicians are crooks and liars, but my heart has other ideas.

But here's today's real rant: the real struggle is between the rich and the rest -- and it has always been that way. No matter the political party, the rich always seem to make out OK. 

My heart wants to make fun of Texas and its weird self-obsession and constant bragging about independence and toughness, but that was never really true and now seems to have become a way to avoid any blame for poor decisions. 

Texans will still boast and chant "Don't mess with Texas" while eagerly accepting emergency aid and charity from across the country. 

Self-deception is not confined to high incomes.

My brain reminds me that most of the people truly suffering in Texas were struggling to make it long before the polar vortex. Just as COVID-19 tended to kill our poorest and most put-upon citizens, so the cold and dark tends to hurt those same people.

The truth at the heart of it all is that it's the rich vs. everyone else, and the rich work very hard to obscure that truth. I'm not calling for revolution, but at some point don't we need to recognize that being hypocritical is just how the rich and powerful play the game? 

Real news would be finding a group of rich and powerful Americans who are NOT hypocritical. 

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum

"Of the dead, say nothing but good."

This long-time advice sprang to mind yesterday as the news of Rush Limbaugh's death from lung cancer at age 70 made the news.

I was surprised at the level of venom I found on my Facebook news feed, most of which said plenty of bad things about Limbaugh. 

I once had a sales route that ran through southeastern Arizona and towns and people are few and far between out there. The only radio station I could get for hours at a time featured Rush Limbaugh's show and I sometimes had to settle for that as a way to pass the long driving time between stops. I was not a fan of his politics but the sheer act of listening to him made me realize that he was a master of radio and of how to keep his listeners on edge, aggravated, and entertained. That was in 2001, BTW, before social media.

It's no exaggeration to say that Limbaugh primed much of the nation for what social media and cable TV has become.

Of course, Limbaugh managed to speak ill of so many for so long that perhaps people felt he had left himself open for "some of the same." I assume Limbaugh, in whatever form, might laugh about all the fuss, or simply shrug and point to his huge personal fortune (though he really can't take it with him). I doubt that the dead take much notice of social media.

The sheer volume of nasty comments (and I am making no judgments on the legitimacy of those) speaks more about how social media has granted permission for people to be as nasty as they wish, with few, if any, personal implications. After all, a nasty comment yesterday morning is soon lost among the cesspool of social media, where outrage and hatred and snarkiness never rest.

I suppose it is quite human to experience a bit of triumph when someone they dislike dies, but it is not an attractive phenomenon. I also suppose some posters have a creepy feeling even as they hit send, the creepiness prompted by what they know should be a higher standard.

But the past decade and more have loosened our tongues, reduced our sense of shame, and weaponized one of the things Americans hold most dear: free expression.

Hints of the butterfly effect

Just another day of dealing with being on the fringe of the polar vortex. Wednesdays are my "grading day" for my Metro Composing Arguments class. Takeout Tuesday was last night, and we ordered enough adult mac and cheese to cover today's big meal. Wine will be involved. "Full Frontal" runs on Wednesday nights and those topical shows are always best when viewed right away -- "Masterpiece" seasons from PBS, on the other hand, can be stockpiled on the DVR for later viewing.

Oh, and that second vaccine shot is coming up on Sunday, so that helps mark the calendar.

But just when you think you have your schedule set to your liking, nature reminds you that your little plans are of no importance in the grand scheme of things. 

My stomach got a bit tight this morning when I read a story in the Post about vaccine shipping delays caused by the frigid temperatures, power outages, and a series of snow storms.

So many unanswered questions. Are our doses for Sunday already in a deep freeze at St. Joe's? Is the plan for vaccine vials to arrive "just in time"? Does the polar vortex actually slow transmission of the virus (since many are stuck at home with no option to mix with the disease) or will the slow down in vaccine dispensation cost us later? 

I hate that syrupy cliche "We're all in the together." But daily events remind me that we can't ignore our neighbors in Texas or Oklahoma or New York. Like it or not, the neighborhood is quite large.

Why didn't we have a COVID vaccine long ago?

I read a story from the New York Times that scientists have been working on a vaccine that could protect humans from ALL types of coronavirus strains, and that some researchers were getting close to the solution several years ago. But a lack of funding slowed or stopped most of the labs looking at the problem.

The good news is that the new reality -- where humans encounter more and more coronavirus types that jump from animal species -- has brought more attention and money to this research.

I was glad to be reminded that even in a country that contains a sizable number of anti-science people and in a time of rampant conspiracy nonsense, there are serious people studying serious solutions to the world's problems... sometimes way ahead of those problems actually appearing widely.

One goal of the modern university is to provide support for this sort of long-range thinking and dreaming and experimenting. Reading about the historic cold snap that has hit much of the country and all the problems with the electric grid, public safety, and buildings designed for "normal" weather, made me think about considering things that we CAN'T do much about versus things we CAN take on.

Freak weather (or maybe the weather weirdness is just a feature of our changing climate?) is something that simply happens, and human resources can't counter the phenomenon.

But humans can devise more effective electric grids, enhanced emergency services, "smart" highways and vehicles that can sense black ice, etc., and so much more that could avoid the worst effects of the weather that occurs.

Perhaps the U.S. needs a Department of Future Challenges that could advocate for more investment in research that won't pay off for a decade or more.

When walking to school or home from school was always uphill

I did a little time traveling this morning after reading about the fearsome "polar vortex" and seeing some Snapchats from family in Seattle and Portland who are not used to snow (but they are getting some this weekend).

I traveled to the 1950s in Iowa City, when there were cold winters and hot summers and weeks at a time in January and February where the sun never quite broke through the overcast skies.

Homes were smaller and families were larger, on average, in those days, so kids staying indoors all day was not good for the kids or for the parents. Below zero? No problem.

My mom was a genius at bundling multiple children into their snow suits and mittens. Once fully wrapped up, only faces were visible. There were so many layers and the suits were so padded and stiff that kids tended to wobble around like penguins. But the chance to get out of the house was worth all the effort and minor discomforts.

I wonder if mom would have sent us out for an hour or two at a time during those below zero days if the local weather kept warning about the polar vortex. 

After all, the news DID frequently discuss the threat of nuclear war, and I spent some strange minutes hiding under my desk during fallout drills at Roosevelt Elementary. 

People weren't fearless then. They just didn't always have the frightening language to work with.

Everybody talks about it but no one does anything about it

How did we ever explain frigid weather before someone coined the term "polar vortex"?

We are going into the deep freeze here on the Front Range starting tomorrow night, with possible below-zero lows for a couple nights. This is caused by the jet stream dipping much further south than it normally does and reminds us of what life in Canada is most of the winter.

Since it's Colorado, we should not be surprised that the temperatures will be warmer in the mountains than around Denver or Fort Collins, and they may be wearing short sleeves in Grand Junction while we are shivering around here.

And there might be a snow storm, or there might not.

No matter how nasty or pleasant the weather, at least we can depend on that topic as one thing that we can all talk about, perhaps without politics. No matter your political POV, cold is cold and wind is wind.

But you might be thinking that this extreme weather is caused by climate change and THAT will get us going again about politics... 

So one more question: How did the weather become political? 

Some days I can't resist

Yesterday's Senate impeachment "trial" made two things clear: Trump did exactly what was alleged (though we knew that since we watched it on TV), and Republican senators are too scared of Republican voters that guilt or innocence doesn't matter to them.

The theater that happened on Tuesday was about constitutionality, but it was even more about basic logic. No working legal system can support "windows of opportunity" to break laws, particularly for elected or appointed officials of the government who are near the end of their time in office.

I see that a 94-year-old German woman was charged with WWII crimes just this past week. Yes, she was a secretary, and yes, she is old enough that we might think that putting her on trial doesn't seem cost-effective or satisfying.

But the German authorities are honor-bound to press the case.

Imagine this as a thought exercise: every senator -- all 100 -- votes to convict the former president and prohibit him from running for public office again. Would the nation stand?

A bumbling war effort

The estimate today is that about 10 percent of the U.S. population has received at least the first vaccine shot, which amounts to nearly 33 million. That seems like a decent start, but the program needs to speed up dramatically if summer is going to look very different from 2020.

I was thinking about how things might work if we really treated the virus as a wartime situation. Can you imagine the government telling soldiers during a "shooting war," like WWII, that enough bullets for their weapons would be available within six months... but to keep fighting?

I have no idea of the pragmatic challenges in ramping up manufacturing and training and testing and distribution options, but imagine they are daunting.

But in a true war, challenges are often met and goals are exceeded. It takes money, of course, but it also takes willpower. 

We fought a phony war on drugs, and a half-hearted war on terror, and not much clear success was achieved. 

Our track record as a country lately is that our war on the virus suggests this is another case of not committing to the effort. Sorry to be skeptical about our efforts, but there we are.

Sunday evening arguments during the big game

Super Bowl commercials have been celebrated and panned and given outsized importance in America's thinking about itself and about how consumers can best be manipulated... and this has been happening for half a century.

Yesterday's entries into this subjective competition seemed to focus on comedy and on "coming together." Both are primarily appeals to pathos in terms of rhetoric.

Ads are arguments, which is why the very same TV ad during the game created diverse reactions, at least on social media.

One of the most talked about ads is this two-minute essay on connection, narrated by Bruce Springsteen. It is the first commercial he has made in 50 years. I had no idea what the product or brand was until the very end and no clear "selling" is going on. There is almost no logos involved in this ad, but the ethos (Bruce!) combines with the pathos of the appeal to emotions to create a compelling message.

I did not do a scientific analysis of the Super Bowl ads, but would simply note that none of them relied on logos as their primary appeal (like, buy this and your life will be better in the following ways...). 

For writers, the urge to make use of ethos and pathos is strong, and there are clearly times when these appeals can work for a particular message or time or brand.

But academic essays build from logos. The "perfect" argument likely would mix all three appeals in some effective proportions.

A reminder to read over your writing before posting

Here is the lead from a story in this morning's New York Times:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, lashed out at Democrats on Friday in her first comments after the House voted to strip her of her committee assignments.

“I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving some one like me free time,” she wrote on her personal Twitter account, referring to the slim margin by which Democrats control the House.

 “In this Democrat tyrannical government, Conservative Republicans have no say on committees anyway,” she said, adding, “Oh this is going to be fun!”

This representative may have some valid arguments, but when her first thought is name-calling, a reader is unlikely to be persuaded.

In terms of the logic of this lead to a longer story, note that the phrase in red does NOT refer to the quotation in that graf. It actually refers to the quotation that follows, in the next graf. Move the phrase in red after her quote about Republicans having no say on committees anyway, and NOW the reporting makes sense.

As I like to point out: everyone needs an editor (even reporters for the NYT).

That "throw away" line "Oh this is going to be fun!" might be termed a non sequitur. This is a rhetorical fallacy that basically boils down to a statement that does not follow the thread of the argument.

The fact that it "does not follow" does not make it untrue in and of itself. But it is irrelevant to her basic argument.

The human comedy plays out on the big screen

I saw some footage from Tuesday night's Douglas County School district board of directors meeting, during which there was a lot of shouting and red faces and outrage. 

Just your typical school board meeting.

But what I was reminded of was how much WATCHING people lose it can be so funny. This phenomenon requires the amused observer to be the third party in the argument, so to speak. The two people who become increasingly upset, angry, even incoherent, are not thinking they are fun to watch, of course. They may eventually laugh at how out of control they got and the point is that the two in the "fight" are quite serious.

The observers (people like me, watching through the TV) have the luxury of not being out of control. This is the essence of the Jerry Springer Show.

These are arguments, but the shouting matches do not resemble the sorts of arguments we try to develop in a course like Composing Arguments. An argument that is nothing more than pathos (or an appeal to emotions), with an unhealthy mix of name-calling (ethos), rarely solves anything for long.

At some point facts and logic need to be brought in. 

Could it be any other way?

Today's Colorado Sun featured this article on how educational quality varies widely in Colorado, and how ZIP codes can be broad indicators of better (or worse) quality. It's mostly based on standardized testing results, and we can all whack away at the meaning of standardized tests and about how much is missed with those sorts of tests.

For any one student, in any one year or test, a standardized test score provides few insights into that student's education, intelligence, potential, etc. But in aggregate, test results can at least give us some trends.

I would never want to come off as skeptical, much less cynical (ha! ha!), but my first thought while reading the story on this latest study produced this question: "Really? Did we really need to invest more time and money asking if money and social class has a LOT to do with the odds of students getting better educations?"

Growing up in a community that is struggling, that is isolated, and where there is little money to lure top teachers and maintain top facilities does NOT doom any particular student to not being successful, not achieving academically, and not being a productive citizen. But does anyone doubt that our circumstances can make those things a much more difficult challenge?

And do we really need another study to confirm this doubt? 

My skepticism does not bring any quick answers to inequities, and assessing a life is always more complex than checking on a person's home ZIP code.

I simply suggest that it's way past time to get to some sort of action stage. Enough with funding studies that confirm clear reality. 

It was frustrating until it wasn't

Well, that was quick.

My wife and I, both just over 70, had been feeling a bit left out of the vaccine party. As of last week, we were on SEVEN lists for appointments. No luck. When we heard that next Monday teachers and 65-year-olds were eligible, that didn't help our impatience.

BTW, I am in favor of teachers getting the vaccine ASAP. Until schools are fully functional, I honestly can't see the country returning to any sort of efficient state.

Anyway, I almost randomly checked in to a list on Sunday morning, found lots of morning openings at St. Joseph's Hospital, signed up, my wife got signed up, and we had an appointment for today. We just returned from our outing to Denver (about 30 miles from our house), have each had the first shot of the Pfizer, and have our appointment set for the second dose. 

Hats off to St. Joe's. They have great signage and free parking just steps from the vaccine clinic. Lots of helpful people to check you in, guide you, do the shots, check in with you as you wait for 15 minutes after receiving the shot. 

As you might expect, women were doing the work, along with a few male people of color. 

The mood in the clinic was "happy." People didn't come there because they were sick, but because of the promise of NOT getting seriously ill. 

The estimate is that my wife and I will be as safe as a vaccine can make us by mid-March (a couple weeks after shot 2). Things won't change that much for us, of course, other than our mental health.

I was talking with our neighbor, and her approach is to NOT get vaccinated (though she said she had just gotten the shingles vaccine). She's a Trump supporter but she is our age and appears to be unarmed. 

How typically American to make a simple health decision political. 

The only thing we have to fear...

One challenge for many students (and people, in general) when it comes to writing is that the very act can involve a certain level of fear.

It can be fear of being criticized for making a mistake. It can be fear based on past negative comments. For many college students, the fear can be related to worry about not measuring up. We want our writing to be "perfect" and are reluctant to finish an essay or post. BTW: perfectionism is a primary source of procrastination.

Think of all the times you put something off until the very last possible moment but then, somehow, managed to complete the task or assignment or challenge.

It's not just writing that causes fear. There's an old saying that the two things people fear the most are death and speaking in public -- just imagine how much most of us would prefer NOT giving a eulogy, then.

Easy for me to say, I supposed, but the truth is that a lot of fears grow out of not being exposed to the activity or the people or the ideas or the technology.

I found this in a recent blog post by Scott Young: Exposure therapy works to reduce an irrational fear by exposing you to the object of your fear combined with safety. Research suggests that up to 70 percent of people may be helped.

One reason I like lots of shorter pieces of writing for our online writing course is that fewer "high stakes" assessments can produce a bit more safety (after all, not doing well on one assignment won't wreck your overall grade) plus more chances to experience writing situations.