Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

West Virginia Cocktail Party

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Up yours, COVID-19! This is how we deal with epidemics in our western Henrico County cul de sac. We call it a West Virginia cocktail party. Someone in the neighborhood brings out some hors d’oeuvres, a bottle of wine and some folding chairs, and plants them in the front driveway. Neighbors come walking by, see the party, and drag up their own chairs (and wine). The impromptu celebration grows organically — one could say, virus-like — until we hit the 10-person maximum permitted under Virginia’s state of emergency.

See our friend Brad with the tape measure? He’s making sure that we’re maintaining a six-foot sneezing distance from one another. Maybe we’ve had a glass or two of wine already — some of us seem a bit closer than six feet. But I’m pretty sure we’re beyond coughing distance.

It looks we’re in for a long slog with this social distancing thing. Bars and nightclubs are closed. We might as well find a way to have fun!

— JAB

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20 responses to “West Virginia Cocktail Party”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    We went walking in the National Battlefield Park near our house and it was packed with people and many with kids. Probably 3 times as many as we normally see there.

    The news says that scientists are not entirely happy with how well people are adhering to their recommendations which are not being implemented uniformly by the Govt, National, State and Local.

    Safe to say that almost none of us have seen something on this scale and not everyone entirely accepts the predictions that this will be very bad and the worst we’ve seen in most of our lifetimes.

    For instance, what exactly makes this one so much more contagious and deadly than say the H1N1 Swine Flu? We only know that most of the scientists do concur in this assessment.

    And apparently, virtually every single elected official at all levels of govt do believe those scientists “predictions” as proffered without much question or doubt. Less so for the population although most of us seem to accept it even though we still don’t quite understand why we keep being told that it unlike prior epidemics and going to be much much worse.

    This is clearly a case where most of us just simply do not know and in which science is telling us something that seems inconceivable in some respects – thus we see different versions of social distancing – and no, this is not an adverse comment about WVA style cocktail .. I’d do the same myself but one of our main social groups has cancelled get-togethers because we number 16 or so and we’re not taking a vote to see who can’t come.

    It’s just amazing to me that virtually every scientist is telling us something that almost none of us can really validate as true or likely, and most everyone is accepting it and we’ll have to wait and see how bad it really turns out to be to determine if the scientists were correct.

    Leap of faith? In a world that is now full of skeptics of science AND the media, AND some of our institutions AND govt – in this situation – the skeptics have diminished to what seems to be a very few.

    We’re all meekly accepting the predictions and recommendations… pretty much across the board.

    Pretty interesting.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      It shows that we are still willing to trust the experts. However, if the number of cases and deaths are less than projected when the virus has run its course, lots of people will say that the danger was overblown and all that inconvenience and job loss was unnecessary. They will not take into account that the incidents were lower because folks took the experts’ advice. After all, it is hard to count things that did not happen.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    We were urged by news and media to watch the Board of Supervisors “emergency” meeting yesterday, something I often do anyhow but it was as compelling as one might imagine.

    They declared a county emergency, and laid out what they would do, for instance on designating the schools as food distribution centers for the kids on free/reduced lunch.

    They’ve also closed most of the Courts and all the civil cases and the county clerk is only dealing with land and gun permit and other things via phone and a drop box outside their office. Most all are not allowed in the office except for employees.

    The county established essentially a liberal leave policy for employees who were sick or who had someone in their families sick.

    And finally, they had a pretty good discussion about budget and the coronavirus impact to the budget.

    They first got an estimate about how much they could lose from sales taxes, meal taxes and some other taxes then they looked at their expenditures to see what they could cut and decided to cut all capital projects that had not started, and all discretionary spending for things like vehicles or travel.

    They are clearly worried about people who lose their jobs and will not be able to pay their bills much less their June real estate and property taxes thus cutting revenue estimates for the next fiscal year.

    And I was thinking for all the capital projects stopped – the employees of the companies who would have done those capital projects – that’s work they won’t have and if other counties do similar – likely more people thrown out of work.

    I’m sure at the State level there is going to be severe budget consequences also and neither the State nor localities normally borrow money – they have to have balanced budgets.

    The Feds on the other hand are talking trillion dollar “helicopter money” to START and to add to all the unemployment compensation that will go to those thrown out of work.

    The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut taxes substantially from 2018 through 2025. The resulting deficits will add $1 to $2 trillion to the federal debt, according to official estimates. The debt increase will be larger if some of TCJA’s temporary tax cuts are extended.

    So, even when the pandemic “ends”, the damage is going to go on for years, probably a decade or more, and changes to how we do things – how commerce “works”, how schools, distance learning and medical care, etc “work” and perhaps even how regulations and licensing “work”.

  3. Steve Haner Avatar
    Steve Haner

    Yes, a depression is not a good thing. Depression, not mere recession. Being part of that “target population,” age 65 with some cardiac issues, I appreciate the thought but destroying our economy and my children’s and grand children’s economic security was not something I asked anyone to do.

  4. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    As Jim mentioned, it’s as if the world has stopped. And yet we feel tectonic shifts under our feet. And likely those shifts under our feet will continue now for a long time in a new rapidly emerging world that we must learn to navigate, and get somehow back into a semblance of reliable control.

    Yet, I sense America has passed its first great test.

    It started with the Biden / Sanders debate on Sunday night, and it lasted through the close of the Stock Market and primary voting last night. That is my sense of it.

    During this 48 hour period many things could have gone wrong, terrible wrong. Instead, many things went terrifically right because individual people, and yes a long established and revered system, stood up, for America, and for all Americans. And stood up in exactly the right way, filling voids and potholes across a broad expanse.

    This started with Joe Biden, and hour after hour from that point on, many Americans one after another stood up for our common good, all over America, again and again, each and all of them rose, many of them in unexpected and surprising, and/or dearly hoped for, ways and places. From across our vast political divides, walls fell. And hands grasped one another in long joined chains of humanity, despite now distances newly forced on us by threat of disease and raw politics, and even these, crumbled into dust by reason of our common humanity summoned forth by its better angels by our leaders new and old suddenly emerging by magic as if they had been there all along. Thus we passed our great test as Americans together and did it with colors flying.

    As to Virginia: Count your amazing blessings.

    By God’s Grace, and a few great leaders in Virginia, Amazon’s future is firmly married to Virginia’s future, too, now. A better positioned and reliable ally in this war Virginia confronts cannot be found.

  5. johnrandolphofroanoke Avatar
    johnrandolphofroanoke

    It is ironic that my last lesson before they closed the schools was about the Great Depression. Students debated Hoover’s Rugged Individualism versus FDR’s New Deal. I gave them two stories. My grandaddy Hawkins sharecropped in Warren County. He recalled the depression years as something the family survived. That small farm generated work, food, and just enough cash to get by. The Hawkins were shining stars of Hoover’s Rugged Individualism. They did not need or want the governments help. My grandfather Whitehead graduated 6 months before the crash of 1929. VPI Civil Engineering degree was of no use until FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps put him to work but not until 1933. That depression crushed young people. CCC was a lifeline. My grandfather treasured those years of traveling across the country and building CCC camps. He is the poster child of how the New Deal helped millions. So which way are we heading? The path of rugged individualism or the path of government intervention?

  6. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    not sure how many rugged individualists survived verses how many lost their farms ( about 750,000) but CCC was a govt program as where the food lines… but even then there were very wealthy folks.

    Today – this is the reality:

    Right now, today, before the virus:

    ” Today, more than 45 million children have coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). For the nation’s youngest children, Medicaid and CHIP play an outsized role, covering 45 percent of children under the age of six, compared to 35 percent of children between the ages of six and 18″

    that’s a pretty shocking statistic – almost half the country’s children six and under get their health insurance from MedicAid because their parents and/or their employers cannot provide it for them.

    So, it’s a pretty good bet that their parents don’t have much wealth and probably many who lose their jobs will have no financial reserves and will end up getting unemployment, food stamps, welfare, etc. ”

    We may well see some version of the depression… even with “stimulus” which is just a modern version of the CCC and food lines.

    https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/07/10/depression-ap331124019_wide-05772a7afbd228a673401e9f5e616c74b8bc1d9a-s800-c85.jpg

  7. TBill Avatar
    TBill

    For us over-65’ers , Gov Northam’s request that we stay in the house is quite an “earth-shattering” request.

    I have trouble seeing that rule being changed before May or June at least. That will stop a lot of community activities perhaps longer than some people realize right now. Rather than argue with my people and making an April activity cancellation edict, I am waiting for it sink in before I do that.

  8. TBill Avatar
    TBill

    For us over-65’ers , Gov Northam’s request that we stay in the house is quite an “earth-shattering” request.

    I have trouble seeing that rule being changed before May or June at least. That will stop a lot of community activities perhaps longer than some people realize right now. Rather than argue with my people and making an April activity cancellation edict, I am waiting for it to sink in before I do that.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Yep – gonna be a tough slog………..

      and the longer the timeframe and stricter the rules the more people are incredulous and some inclined to not follow the recommendations.

      Now, some authorities are saying that these are not really “recommendations”, they are, in fact, edicts with penalties for violations!

      I’m AGOG. I’ve never ever seen anything like this although I have lived through multiple epidemics, even pandemics.

      This one is different – not because I know it is but because I’m being told it is – but scientists and by elected officials. They seem to have information I do not have and do not understand, and they are incident that I have no choice but to heed their edicts.

      They must know something really bad if we are to this point, no?

      1. TBill Avatar
        TBill

        Well we are waiting for the shoes to drop. We do not know how many are infected yet. The schools only closed a few days ago. Kids were coming to school sick (with who knows what) and the teachers had to take them to the nurses office to be sent home. We are hoping there is not wide-spread COVID-19 all over the place. Pregnant pause at the moment.

      2. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        “They must know something really bad if we are to this point, no?”

        That, or governments with long-standing totalitarian tendencies are taking advantage of the situation to make us more dependent on them.

    2. Acbar Avatar
      Acbar

      Agreed, TBill — sometimes it’s easier to let it sink in slowly than to argue. A more difficult choice for organizations like churches, which have to plan.

      We are investing a lot of time in getting video-chat and video-conferencing familiarity. It’s important both for the organization and for the participants to have something to do and keep at it; for groups to meet and, around the edges, just see one another and socialize. Our book club has a video virtual “dinner meeting” scheduled for the end of this month — thank God for Zoom’s technology, and Google Hangouts video chat.

      JB’s “WV cocktail party” paints a pretty picture — but that’s not the scene around McLean here, not because we don’t like our neighbors but because “social distancing” here doesn’t allow that much interaction with them. We are mixing only with family now, and the kids are insisting it stay that way till the onslaught subsides a little.

  9. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    For antisocial hermits like me, our day has finally arrived!

    😉

  10. djrippert Avatar
    djrippert

    Yes, trust the government “experts”. The “experts” who didn’t have enough test kits. The “experts” who botched the first attempt at issuing new test kits. The “experts” who debate whether 54M or 40,000 Germans will be infected. The “experts” who debate whether the fatality rate will be 3.4% or under 1%. The “experts” who thought trade with China was such a good idea that we can’t make our own masks or blood pressure medicine. The “experts” in the Trump Administration who wanted to expand the use of investigational drugs or the “experts” in the FDA who opposed that.

    Just under 19 years ago government “experts” were shocked when airliners were used by terrorists as weapons of mass destruction. Then, in the aftermath, one of those “experts” wrote a book titled, “Your government failed you”. I’m guessing some government “expert” will write a follow up titled something like “Your government failed you again” in the aftermath of this outbreak.

    As you listen to Joe Biden debate Bernie Sanders or the Democratic nominee debate Donald Trump ask yourself a question – will more / bigger government really make things better?

    1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
      Reed Fawell 3rd

      I generally agree. Yes, there are good, even great experts, but damn few, and those are far between. The hard part is finding them, empowering them, and directing them for maximum benefit. This is rarely done successfully. Most of the time we wander blind, bumbling around, climbing wrong ladders, often doing those blind climbs again and again for generations, until reality comes crashing down around us, burying us whole, our cultures, our groups, our nations, and our civilizations.

      Incredibly we seem never to learn, even though the 2oth Century is littered with the rubble of these failed human groups. We’re so foolish that few of us today can even name the victims or their lessons, much less appreciate or apply them, though their remnant are all around us, begging for attention, before we erase them altogether, lost for all time.

      I am reminded here of a brilliant, game changing book just published that rips the blinders off us today. It certainly turned my mind upside down, illuminating how ignorant I was of my own time.

      Read The Age of Entitlement, America Since the Sixties, by Christoper Caldwell. It’s a wonderful illustration of the lessons set out in Doris Lessing’s classic book Prisons We Choose to Live Inside.

      All that being said:

      I find much admirable in what is done today in America right now by those of us who address this Corona-Virus, given all the idiocy and blindness gone before them, like what The Age of Entitlement teaches us on broader but highly related topics.

  11. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Why put down West Virginia?

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Because they’re trying to steal our counties!

      1. Mom Avatar
        Mom

        Stealing my ass, they’re affording sanctuary.

  12. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: “govt sucks”.

    yep. We should have never let them be in charge of epidemics/pandemics…

    What’s going on now is jut pure unadulterated socialism

    we’ve been warned about it for years and now the leftists have
    finally found their opening to take over and shut down the free market!

    Great Googla Moogla!

    tax & spend is going to be a fond remembrance!

    We now get to pay out the wazoo for gross incompetence!

    surely the free market would have done better than this!

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