Gongol.com Archives: June 2020
June 23, 2020
Why do we even have a government?
James Madison: "[W]e can rejoice in the proofs given that our political institutions, founded in human rights and framed for their preservation, are equal to the severest trials of war as well as adapted to the ordinary periods of repose." ■ Madison framed the Constitution. He was President during the War of 1812, which could have broken the young country, but didn't. We should take him at his word that the very purpose of our government was and is the preservation of human rights.
A sobering and distressing dispatch from Houston
A Texas doctor reports that "in Houston we, the pediatricians at Texas Children's Hospital, will now start seeing adult patients." All because Covid-19 has filled the ICU capacity at adult hospitals.
The artist once formerly known as Prince fighting the former prince while the Queen scraps with Queen.
How the pandemic is changing cities
This article opens with notes on changes to mass transit. One might wonder if small cars (serving, say, 2 to 8 people) could/will be introduced to run on existing rail systems. Still high density, but with greater isolation. The need to efficiently move people at high volumes while minimizing space and energy use remains, but we might need to rethink how we achieve it. Odds seem good that we'll find a way to get Covid-19 under control sometime in the not-so-distant future -- but what if we can't? Or what if something else comes after it? Oughtn't we be prepared for the contingencies?
"Barcelona opera house reopens with performance to 2,292 plants"
Potted plants don't need cough drops to keep quiet for a recording. Plants 1 - People 0.
Even accidental voter suppression is still voter suppression
You can run a polling place with the efficiency of a Swiss train station, but Kentucky's experiment in "only having one polling location in both Louisville and Lexington, the state's two largest cities" didn't enable voters the maximum reach of the franchise, and in fact demonstrably stood in the way of it. Especially during a pandemic, that's un-American.
The English language needs a punctuation mark to denote a cheerful period
For those times when an exclamation mark is too much, but when a simple period is too dry. If we can come up with the interrobang, then we can invent the cheeriod.
