...he's just playing a version of Calvinball (I have to believe that that name is either Trademarked, Copyrighted, or both, but I couldn't find it. In any case kudos to Bill Watterson for being able to foretell our future over 20 years ago!).
Wikipedia (here) has two quotes describing Calvinball, which perfectly describe our Goober and his actions.
The only consistent rules of the game are that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice and that each participant must wear a mask.
and
It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go.
If those aren't enough to convince you, here are two links to online images of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips offered as proof: Link 1, and Link 2.
See it is like this, I was thinking about why the Goober keeps changing the rules. My first thought was that he's doing it because 1) he knows that it is all bull s**t but it makes it look like he's doing something, 2) by changing it regularly we all are confused for a few days to reduce the backlash, and 3) by the time any lawsuits get to be actually heard and ruled on, he's made it all moot by saying those rules don't matter anymore... but then I realized that all that was ascribing way too much cleverness and deep thought to our Goober and it is really just that he's playing Gavinball†. Anyways, henceforth I shall refer to our Goober as playing Gavinball†. With that now out of the way here are the latest changes to the game.
First, yes cases are rising through out CA and only slightly less so here in San Diego. Taking action to reduce interactions (and hopefully the spread of the disease) makes sense. So what to do? Well, new rule number 1: California is now divided into 5 Zones. Are the Zones divided up such that the population within the Zones is reasonably consistent? Not at all. For example Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Orange County, Riverside County, and San Bernardino (the five most populated counties in the state) are all in the same Zone. But even that wasn't enough for the Goober, he continued and added 6 more counties to Zone 5. The final population total for the Zone is 22,993,074 of the CA total of 39,502,223 (or 58% of the entire state!). One poor county that got lumped in with LA is tiny Mono County. For those of you who don't know, let me say that Mono county is up north against the Nevada stateline, on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The county has a total population of 14,444 (that's 1/700th of LA county). It's population is round-off error in LA. It is also a 5 hour drive from LA City Hall to Lee Vining. I drove through Lee Vining once (in the summer time). If you go left off US 395 (northbound) on to CA 120 (westbound) you go up to 9,943 feet where you enter Yosemite National Park's East entrance. It's closed most years from late October to late May due to snow. How'd you like to live there and get all your stuff closed because LA has a problem? For now at least the Goober isn't doing everything by the Zones. For example, yesterday a wildfire broke out in Ventura County - also Zone 5. At least he didn't make San Diego County under go evacuation (although when my phone got an emergency alert in the middle day I had a brief thought that he was, turned out to be a notice about the CoViD lockdown that happened more than 24 hours earlier). Seriously, given that the Zones are crazy, how did the Goober decide how to divide up the state? Turns out that the Goober decided to divide the counties so that each Zone had about the same number of counties in them. Sure. Why not? It is Gavinball† after all.
So what are some other new rules? New rule number 2: All restaurants, gyms, barbershops, and beauty salons must close. This includes the outdoor seating and outside exercise areas despite the facts that the businesses spent some hefty change setting those up to comply with the previous set of rules and that no one has any data suggesting these are significant sources of spread. Oh Well. It's Gavinball†! New rule number 3: If your kid's school is already doing in person teaching, they can continue, but if they are not doing in person teaching they can't switch to in person. Surprise! The Goober's kids go to a private school doing in person teaching. New rule number 4: Retail is limited to 20% of capacity. But wait! It's Gavinball†! New rule number 4 gets replaced by new rule number C after 24 hours: Retail is now limited to 35% (apparently CoViD just got less contagious in that 24 hours). New rule number 5: Playgrounds are now closed. Gavinball†! After 72 hours CoViD just got less contagious again and new rule number 5 gets replaced by new rule number D: Playgrounds are open again. New rule number 6: Although restaurants, gyms, hotels, and etc. are closed, ski resorts are not. Wanna bet on what our Goober likes to do when he's not going to the French Laundry for an indoor dinner with 22 people for a lobbyists birthday?
An update on another topic I've opined about
Since we are all so worried about anyone dying here are two points to ponder, one serious, and one not so much. The CDC has updated their weekly deaths by age through about November 18 (I suspect that the last week is pretty incomplete, but I included it anyways). The total number of excess deaths for 2020 (that is the total deaths for 2020 minus the average totals for the same time periods for the years 2015 - 2019) works out to 388,323. The reported CoViD deaths through November 18 was 249,670. That means there are 138,653 excess excess deaths (i.e., deaths not due to the CoViD-19 disease, but still in excess of a 'usual' year). I strongly believe that these deaths are due to the actions of our, and I use this word loosely, leaders. Yet, these leaders continue to ignore these deaths. Will the closures of our latest round of Gavinball† (technically the re-re-closures) exacerbate these excess excess deaths? I fear so. For the not so serious point see this Babylon Bee article. I wish they wouldn't give him any ideas...
____________________
† - I should trademark/copyright this, but I'm too lazy and cheap.
1 comment:
Maybe he isn't any smarter than he seems.
Post a Comment