Chamblee54

It started out as another slack sunday. Only problem is, things never did pick up. After a while, all I wanted to go was lie down. After a few hours of this, I took my temperature. It was 102.4. Getting tested for covid was one thing to do. As soon as I made the appointment, I began to feel better.
There was a long night of tossing, and turning, but never getting REM sleep. I called the periodontist, to cancel my appointment, and went to the testing site. I was done in under fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, my temperature was going down, and I had considerably more energy.
The email from the test-folks came at 11:35 am, Tuesday. I was negative. I was thinking how I would have felt if I had been poz, but had not had the booster. While I have numerous doubts regarding the efficiency of the pfizervax, it would be better for PR purposes to have had it. It is a game.
Today’s announcement on monoclonal antibodies is typical. The FDA is pulling a EUA on two MA treatments. When I asked google to find me that link, one of the results was this: “…COVID-19 patients … receive a monoclonal antibody treatment, which has been shown to reduce COVID-19-related hospitalization or deaths … However, UC Davis Health infectious disease experts are warning patients that the monoclonal antibody treatment is not a replacement for the COVID-19 vaccine.” I thought a vaccine was something you got when before you were infected. A vaccine is not a post-infection treatment, regardless of the medical advice available on twitter.
I find a Walgreens near me. The next appointment is in a half hour. The WG website wants you to set up an account for your reservation. When the registerbot asks me my race, I reply unknown. Non-compliance is often meaningless, but it helps me feel less ovine.
The book I am taking with me to WG is Hollywood, by Charles Bukowski. Hank Chinaski was a drunken rebel in his day, which ended in 1994. He would be 102 today. When you google his name, one of the suggested searches: “Was Charles Bukowski a nihilist?”
I get to WG, and my appointment is not on the list. A nice young man finds it in a computer. I return to my seat and my book. CB is negotiating a movie deal. He goes to a screening of somebody’s movie, and Werner Herzog is sitting at the bar. The fly on the wall got drunk from the fumes.
After a few minutes, I am called into a small room. The same helpful young man, who found my appointment in a computer, was to administer the dose. No, we do not aspirate. There is very little chance of the shot going into the blood stream. I did not taste anything metallic after the shot, so I suppose it went into the muscle, and not a vein.
After you get the shot, you are requested to sit down for fifteen minutes. It is bad manners to die on site. There is a sign on the pharmacy counter, “Select Narcotics in the Time Delay Safe.” Being a well-trained consumer, I look at all that merchandise, begging me to take it home. When I got the first two shots, it was in a sci-fi office building. They did not have merchandise to tempt you.
My supply of an OTC substance is running low. I find it at WG, but the price seems a bit steep. I decide to forego convenience, and make a trip to Walmart. The commodity was $20 cheaper at Walmart. Pictures today are from “The Georgia State University Library.”

.

Democrats have proposed a new law about voting access. Grandpa Brandon thinks denouncing “voter suppression” is the way to build support. Unfortunately, the debate has centered around toxic, race-pandering rhetoric. Almost nobody is talking about what the proposed new law would do. A bit of googling turned up a document from Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. If you get tired of the chamblee54 version, you can go to the original source. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
Most of the proposals are the federal government telling states how to run elections. The IANAL masses might wonder if this is constitutional. Another feature of this bill is that the instructions are given to the states. In Georgia, the elections are mostly run by the counties. This did not stop Democrats, or Donald J. Trump, from blaming the Secretary of State for inconvenient election results.
Lets take a look at some of the specific proposals. With regards to early voting, the bill requires the states to offer early voting for a specified time period. No-excuse absentee ballots are subject to a national standard, along with other regulations concerning mail-in voting.
Election Day holiday: “The bill would make Election Day a legal public holiday…” This sounds good in theory, but may be troublesome to many employers. One thing that might help here is to move ED to Monday. Voting on Tuesday is a holdover from days when farmers went to the county seat on a horse. Voting on Monday would make things a bit simpler.
“Voter validation: The bill would promote a national standard for states that have an identification requirement for in-person voting, allowing for the use of a wide range of forms of identification (including electronic copies) and alternative options for voter validation. States that do not impose an identification requirement would not be required to have one.” Voter ID is widely denounced as being racist. If this passage is any indication, Voter ID is here to stay. (In the controversy over Georgia’s SB202, the ID requirement was widely seen as a feature of Jim Crow on steroids. It turns out that SB202 calls for the voter writing their driver’s license/ID number on an absentee ballot application.)
“Cracking down on deceptive and intimidating practices: … It would also establish federal criminal penalties for deceiving voters…” If it was a federal crime to deceive voters, every politician in America would be in prison.
“Voting rights restoration: The bill restores federal voting rights to formerly incarcerated citizens upon their release … removing the vestiges of restrictions born out of Jim Crow.” Kentucky had a law disenfranchising felons in 1792. This was a hundred years before the Jim Crow laws were passed. There are arguments to be made on both sides of this issue. It should not be addressed with misleading racial arguments.
“Countering long lines and related discriminatory practices: The bill creates protections for individuals subjected to excessive lines on Election Day — most often Black and Latino voters — by requiring states to ensure that lines last no longer than 30 minutes …” This is more gratuitous race baiting. While the idea of lines less than 30 minutes is appealing, one wonders exactly how the feds are going to enforce this requirement. Also, since the elections are usually administered by the counties, what are the states supposed to do?
“Requiring paper records and other election infrastructure improvements: The bill requires states to replace old, paperless electronic voting machines with voting systems that provide voter-verified paper records and provides grants for states to purchase more secure voting systems.” Georgia is going to a system with a backup paper ballot. When you cast your vote, a laser printer prints out a sheet of paper with your vote, represented by a QR code. This paper is then fed through a roller into a receptacle. To this uninformed voter, that seems like a lot of moving parts. While the new system MIGHT work in a high volume election, there is a high potential for screw ups. These are Georgia elections we are talking about here.
There are sections of the bill devoted to Campaign Finance Reform, and Gerrymandering. You can look at the Brennan Center document for more information. While the new bill has good intentions, the suspicion here is that the proposals will make things worse. God is in the details.
“The bill would require strong, uniform rules for congressional redistricting, including a ban on partisan gerrymandering and strengthened protections for communities of color.” Gerrymandering is like the weather … everyone has opinions, but relatively few know what they are talking about. If you create a black district, then the districts surrounding it are going to get whiter. If you tinker with the districts to favor one group, another group is going to be unfairly affected. The bill has good intentions, that might not be well thought out. God is in the details.
“Automatic voter registration: The bill would make automatic voter registration (AVR), which 19 states and the District of Columbia have already adopted, the national standard.” In Georgia, when you get a drivers license, you are automatically registered to vote. This eliminates any of the “exact match” issues that Democrats made so much noise about in 2018. The DMV is an exact match operation. Also, paperwork at the DMV is typed. Illegible paper applications were a major reason that registration applications were thrown out in previous elections. Illegible applications were also a problem with the New Georgia Project, a voting registration program directed by Stacey Abrams.
“Same day voter registration: The bill requires states to offer same day voter registration … SDR permits eligible voters to register to vote and cast a ballot in federal elections on the same day.” The sense here is that this is not a good idea. What happens when you move, and want to vote in another precinct? Will your old registration be cancelled? How do the states/counties keep up with all this? Is there a national database, that tells Georgia to cancel your Atlanta registration because you have moved to Alabama? And how are we going to process all of this while people are waiting in line behind you to vote? Once again, SDR might be a good idea, but there are a lot of details to work out.
“Protections against unlawful voter purges: The bill provides safeguards to prevent unlawful, faulty, error-prone methods for purging voter rolls … Further, states would be required to notify within 48 hours any individual removed from the list of eligible voters of their removal, the reasons for their removal, and how they can contest the removal.” In 2018, before voters were removed from the rolls, they were sent a post-card, and asked to reply. If they did not reply, they were removed. Now, if the state could not get in touch with them before, how are they going to reach these voters now? The feds do not always think these things through.