Very good (and very, VERY inevitable) news

especially since America's 70% fully vaccinated Covid rate brings herd immunity within our sights.

Epidemiology 101: Viruses survive by mutating; viruses fade into oblivion when they can no longer out-mutate either their naturally or medically made antibodies.

Thanks to epidemiology, any antibody can now eventually be medically made -- which is why polio, anthrax, smallpox, measles, more recently HIV, and most recently Ebola are pretty much the stuff that distant memories are made of.

Welcome to the beginning of the end, Covid.


Rocknation

Meghan was never invited. But they wanted Harry there so badly, they paid him and/or cut a deal

In exchange for Harry's attending solo (in order to publicly rub his face in what he will never have for refusing his royal duty banishment -- oops, I mean assignment -- in Africa with his "well-qualified" wife), and Meghan "babysitting" back home, their children got an upgrade to their previously withheld (but nonetheless still quite worthless) royal titles.


Rocknation

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy.

They might have split up, or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all the remains is the faces and names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Moved to Jersey circa 1995 -- not because NYC had gotten too expensive

but because I'd come to realize that I'd been born to be a Jersey girl...despite having been born in the Bronx.

P.S. There is no such place as Central New Jersey: with a vertical reach of barely 175 miles, New Jersey is just too plain short to have a credible central region.



North Jersey consists of the counties of Mercer, Middlesex, and the counties north of them; the rest is South Jersey (including Monmouth County, because it shares a border with the Jersey Shore's Atlantic Ocean). Thank you and good night.

P.P.S. And it's pork roll -- In 1906, the government decreed that way it was made, it doesn't qualify to be classified as ham.


Rocknation

Ironically, "Is it OK to be white?" would have made a great subject for a Dilbert strip

During the Feb. 22 episode of “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” he referenced a Rasmussen Reports survey that had asked whether people agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” Most agreed, but Adams noted that 26% of Black respondents disagreed and others weren’t sure.

"...The firm disputed many of his theories..."

Remember those 11M additional votes Trump got in 2020 that he couldn't stop bragging about? His "theory" seemed to be based on his getting them from Democrats with "buyer's remorse." Actually, they came from the 26M voters who were either too young or too apathetic to vote in 2016: Biden got the win because he got the rest.

Add that excess of 4M non-2016 voters to Trump's 3M popular vote margin of defeat in 2016 (how likely is it that the "landslide majority" of them came down with buyer's remorse?), and you get Biden's 7M-vote margin of victory.


Rocknation

The WordPress Re-Installment That DIDN'T Happen

Went to my WordPress blog home page -- was greeted with their "white screen of death":



Never got a "site admin email."

Rounded up the usual suspects -- the plugins and the databases -- but they both "tested clean."

It looked like I'd have to do a complete re-install. But it's been years since my last one, and apparently the WordPress "famous five minute install" is now the stuff of ancient history.

I decided that the smartest route to take was via the latest edition of the WordPress installment instructions. One of their very first instructions? "PHP 7.4 or greater."

Consulted my Web host's PHP section. My account was set on PHP 7.3; my Web host's current maximum is PHP 8.1.

Two clicks later, my blog was back: WordPress complete re-install NOT accomplished!!!


Rocknation

We didn't even ATTEMPT "do-it-yourself" end-of-life home care

because it seemed that when it comes to babysitting terminally ill loved ones literally to death with no qualifications, no training, no job experience, and no pay -- well, what could possibly go wrong?

We said that if our mother did not yet qualify for assisted living, nursing home, or hospice care, either they would provide her with 24 hours' worth of professional home health care, or we would provide her with a lawyer. She got 24-hour home attendant care until she qualified for hospice.

My most sincere condolences for all your losses.


Rocknation

In the immortal words of Mrs. Slocombe

I am forever indebted to Lansbury for teaching me how to "run a Jessica Fletcher"

(the character she played on Murder She Wrote). She would never embarrass the professionally-trained and allegedly smarter detectives she'd work with by saying, "You didn't notice that the position of the body makes it obvious that the murderer is left-handed?" She would always say, "You noticed, OF COURSE, that the position of the body CLEARLY indicates that the murderer has to be left-handed..."

Example: Last month, I told my new landlord, "I figured that your not telling us that you'd be disconnecting the wifi was a security measure since you were installing surveillance cameras. Lucky for me I have a mobile hotspot account, which I can simply deduct from the next rent!" Our wifi re-materialized within 48 hours...


Rocknation