The Winds

 

“We cannot direct the winds, but we can adjust our sails”

Unknown

Good advice for a sailor, but also good advice for times of trouble, whether personal or widespread.  Any sailor knows that the winds will blow in the direction dictated by weather patterns and if he wants to get anywhere in his sailing ship, he will have to make the best use of his sails.  And sometimes that means often not going directly in the direction that he wants to go.

But why is that relevant in times of trouble, such as the current coronavirus pandemic?  It’s relevant if we think of the virus as the wind.  It is going to continue to go in the direction it is destined.  Its direction is to travel from person to person in order to cause infection and illness, and yes even death.  It is not going to change direction.  So, as any good sailor would, we have to adjust our sails which means going in whatever direction that will keep us from catching and succumbing to the virus.  That seems simple enough.  Accept the advice of medical professionals to wear masks and maintain physical distancing.  If we had all done that early when the virus showed up it might have prevented the disruption that has ensued.  Even now, there are those who refuse to adjust their sails.  They have a litany of excuses why they won’t do this.  “The coronavirus is a hoax or a government conspiracy”, “I have a constitutional right not to do these things”, “We have to keep the economy going no matter what”.  But you have no constitutional right to infect others which is half the battle. “Don’t get it, don’t spread it” could be the slogan for these times.  

But there are those who still will not adjust their sails and will keep trying to go in the same direction despite the sudden change in the wind when the virus arrived. And we are already getting the same lame excuses about why people should not or will not get the vaccine that will eventually be developed.  The anti-vaccers are already at full volume about this. But a vaccine is the only way that the spread of the virus can be definitively changed.

But there are still those who resist common sense. And so, in his bravado fashion of not accepting the medical advice of his own expert, President Donald Trump has caught the virus and has been sent to the hospital.  The same fate landed on two other leaders who tried to downplay the virus, the President of Brazil and the Prime Minister of Great Britain.  World leaders who cannot or will not adjust their sails, no matter which way the wind blows, are not much good for the people they govern or the world at large.

So, let us admit that the wind has changed for now and adjust our sails accordingly.

 

House Work

 

As I sit here listening to Mendelssohn and Beethoven, at the same time trying to ignore the sounds of work being done downstairs in the kitchen, I reflect on the things that are important in life.  Boy, is that last statement a bit pretentious!  But there is some truth in it.  Such goings on, as are happening in our kitchen during a major renovation (by someone else, I wouldn’t dare try myself), do allow time for some thought.  They make you appreciate some of the things you have taken for granted for a long time.

I miss my kitchen, or at least the use of it.  The kitchen table is still there, but it is covered in a tarp and covered with work-men's tools and drawings.  There is no place to prepare meals or place small appliances. But the new kitchen that is taking shape does look interesting.

I miss my living room.  Oh, it’s still there but it is now the home of a fridge, a microwave and a patio table to eat on.  It’s kind of crowded.  We can still sit in there, but it feels kind of crowded and you get confused why you’re there.

I miss my dining room.  It’s still there too, but you can’t dine there.  The dining table is covered with all of our dishes, some of them even clean.  There are no chairs in the room, but there is an extra desk that used to reside in the hallway.  The table is moved to one side of the room, so I now have to try and avoid, not always successfully, the light fixture that usually hangs over the table.

Our laundry room is now the pantry.  The powder room is now for the workmen.  So, I hide out a lot in my den which, at least for now, is still my den.  It is much quieter here than listening to the power tools being wielded downstairs.  That’s why you are getting light works of literature from me such as this piece.

I miss our stove.  It is hard to devise a menu when everything has to be cooked either on a barbeque or in a microwave.  There are such meals available and as people have said, “You can always order in”.  But as much as I like pizzas from Louis Pizza Express, you can only do that so often.

But I miss most the dishwasher. Humping baskets of dirty dishes down to the basement so they can be washed in the set-tub, which is the only sink big enough to wash them in, is just going too far.  Not only that but you then have to hump the clean dishes back up again and try and find places for them on the dining room table.  By the way, don’t forget to look for my next book, “The Advantages for Hand Drying Dishes with an Old Beach Towel versus a Dish Towel (A scientific study).”

Some Current Oddities

Friends

During periods of lockdown and isolation, you find out that is better to spend it with a partner that is your best friend rather than with a great lover.

Sports

If major league baseball is any example, it is unlikely that any of the sports leagues currently trying to salvage a season will actually succeed in that.

WE objectively

Let’s look at the WE situation in a more objective light.  Despite naysayers who say that “volunteers” shouldn’t be paid, the idea of the student program was a good one.  The people who it was aimed at were not able to find summer jobs but in many cases need the money to be able to continue with their education.  So, the idea is good, now how to manage it to benefit students this summer.  If the government had tried to do it themselves, it would have taken weeks if not months to gear up staff and facilities to do it.  The government therefore had to find some organization that was ready to get started right away.  The first thought would have been a competitive procurement project.  The first thing on the agenda would have been the preparation of a Request for Proposal (RFP).  Now suppose that the work on that had started on the 1^st of March (a wildly optimistic date since the pandemic was not officially announced until over a week later, but let's just assume that date).  At a minimum it would have taken three months to prepare the document including the rules of the competition and evaluation criteria.  That brings us the end of May.  Then there would have been the time allowed for the bidders to respond.  That would probably be at least 2 months (we’re talking about a $900 million enterprise here).  That would take until the end of July.  Now we have to evaluate the bids, optimistically one month.  Now we’re at the end of August.  The decision must now work its way through the approval process of the responsible department, Treasury Board, the PCO and finally get on the cabinet calendar; one to two more months.  We’re now at the end of October, and still no contract has been awarded for a student summer program.  Doesn’t look very promising for the student for this academic year, does it?  The only way this program was going to fulfill its mandate was to find a willing partner right away and award a source contract. WE is a well-known Canadian organization with a presence across the country that appeared willing to get this program moving in a timely manner.  A good candidate to turn to. Until, that is, people had to make it an ethics and political issue.  I wish the students who would have benefited from this program the best of luck, but I think that there is going to be a lot of empty seats at colleges and universities this fall.

The threat

In my opinion the biggest threat to managing this pandemic is those people who plead that they have a constitutional right not to wear masks or physically distance.  They have no more “right” to such an excuse than I have to kill or rob someone.  Where it is required, it is required by law, the same as the prohibition against killing or robbing anyone.