Tag Archives: covid

IS TENNESSEE REALLY AGAINST SCHOOL MANDATES?

Posted on by
Reply

In August, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee signed an executive order giving parents the right to opt-out of local school mask mandates. Governor Lee said in his order that he supported Covid vaccination. He said that vaccines are: “The most important tool we have to fight the pandemic.” However, the governor said he was issuing this order because he is opposed to public school mandates and government mandates in general. Well, don’t they have school mandates in Tennessee? Yes, they certainly do.

Public school mandates in Tennessee are among the harshest in the country. In Tennessee, schoolchildren as young as 7 years of age have been arrested and taken to jail in handcuffs for offenses such as cursing in a school playground. In 2016, 11 schoolchildren were arrested in Rutherford County for watching a fight. The 2 children who were fighting were 5 and 6 years old and were not arrested because of their age, but the children who watched the fight were older and arrested and taken to jail for failure to stop the fight.

Does Tennessee allow paddling and beating of school children? Yes, but with one exception. Disabled children cannot be beaten by school teachers or school staff in Tennessee without permission of the parents. If the parents give their permission, then school teachers in Tennessee can beat physically and mentally disabled children for offenses such as tardiness. The hypocrisy of some politicians about their opposition to school mandates seems astonishing to me! Over 700,000 Americans have already died from Covid. How many school children have died from tardiness? Yes, I know. I have written about this before.

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND SMALLPOX. Anti-vaxxers say that vaccination mandates violate their rights as American citizens. Well, the Founding Fathers of the United States didn’t feel that way. Early in the American Revolution, smallpox ran rampant through George Washington’s army. During the Battle of Quebec in December 1775, Washington’s army was so weakened by smallpox that they had to call off the battle and retreat back to New York. Washington tried a number of measures to control the epidemic, including quarantines, but nothing worked. Finally, in 1777, Washington opted for smallpox vaccination of his troops. Although the method of vaccination available at the time was crude, it works. Once a soldier was vaccinated, he got a lifetime immunity from smallpox. Washington ordered all of his troops vaccinated for smallpox, and with no exemptions, no opt-out. Washington informed John Hancock of his decision. Hancock was the president of the Continental Congress at the time. Neither Hancock nor any other member of Congress objected to Washington’s decision to make smallpox vaccination mandatory. So – we actually know that the Founding Fathers were not opposed to mandatory vaccination.
Below is a famous photo taken around 1900 of two 16 year old boys. Both were exposed to smallpox at the same time. One boy was vaccinated. The other was not. This photo appeared in newspapers all over the U.S.

BE CAREFUL USING THE WORD ‘TOMORROW’ IN EMAILS.

Posted on by
Reply

A lot of people have still not figured out that making an appointment by email is very different from making an appointment by telephone. When you call someone on the phone, you are in direct communication with the other person. In a phone call, ‘today’ means today, and ‘tomorrow’ means tomorrow. However, when you send an email, you can’t be sure when the recipient will get it. He may get it immediately, but if his server or yours is down or screwed up, he may not get your message for hours. Haven’t you ever received an email the day after it was sent? You should get in the habit of being specific about dates in email messages. State the day of the week you are talking about. At some point, you may get yourself into trouble, like missing an important appointment, by using words like ‘tomorrow’ in an email.

When is ‘next Tuesday’? ‘Next’ is another word that gets people into trouble in emails. Suppose you get an email on Sunday, October 10 inviting you to a meeting ‘next Tuesday’. Is the sender referring to October 12 or October 19? The dictionary defines ‘next’ as ‘immediately after’, but after what? Avoid confusion. State the date.

Business etiquette.  In business schools in Europe, students are taught business etiquette and how to write business letters. That is a basic part of a business education in Europe and Japan. Here in the U.S., business schools don’t normally teach that at all. I majored in business, and the subject of business etiquette never came up. I do recall a lecture on how to write a resume, but not how to write a business letter.

The Handshake. Shaking hands has been part of business etiquette for centuries and refusing to shake somebody’s hand has always been considered an insult. Covid has changed that. If someone offers to shake my hand, I politely tell them that I don’t shake hands anymore because of Covid. No one has yet taken offense by that. Dr. Anthony Fauci said last year: “I don’t think we should ever shake hands again, to be honest with you.” Forget about bumping elbows as an alternative to a handshake or having everybody wipe their hands with hand sanitizer before or after shaking hands. If I was running an office, I would put up signs around the office stating: ‘We do not shake hands in this office due to Covid.’

CALLING ME ON THE TELEPHONE.Before I answer my phone, I always check my Caller I.D. screen first. If my Caller I.D. does not identify the caller or says that the call is from a ‘Private Caller’, ‘Unknown Name’, ‘Blocked Number’, ‘Toll Free Number’, or just the name of a city; I will not answer the call. If you are calling me from a telephone that does not identify you, just leave a voicemail message. Do not hang up and call me back later. That won’t do any good. I check my messages frequently, and I will reply to legitimate voicemail messages. I am sorry if this seems rude, but I get a lot of robocalls, and this is the only way I can control the problem. You should do the same thing that I do about this. When you answer a robocall, you are telling the computer that called you that you answer robocalls. Doing that gets you more robocalls, calls like: “Your auto warranty is about to expire” or “Congratulations! You have been selected to receive a free…….” I recently got a robocall that said that I failed to appear for jury duty and that a bench warrant for my arrest would be issued in 48 hours unless I paid a $500 fine, a fine that I could only pay with Walmart gift cards. It seems hard for me to believe that there are people gullible enough to fall for a scam this obvious, but I am told that a lot of people do.

RENTER’S INSURANCE.

Posted on by
Reply

Do you have renter’s insurance? Renter’s insurance costs between $150 and $200 a year, a small price to pay for a lot of coverage. First, you also get personal property insurance with worldwide coverage. That means that if your stuff gets stolen from your home, your car, or your luggage while you are traveling; you can get reimbursed. Second, you get personal liability insurance. That protects you in case somebody slips on your porch or trips over an extension cord and breaks his clavichord. I always advise tenants to buy renter’s insurance whenever I sign a lease, and tenants invariably tell me that they will do that, but sadly, a lot of them put off making the purchase until they have suffered a loss, and then it’s too late. That sounds a lot like the unvaccinated people in hospitals who say to the doctor just before they die from Covid19: “Okay doc. Give me the damn vaccine”, and then the doctor has to tell them that it’s too late for that. Sadly, that happens many times every day. It seems hard to believe that there are still large numbers of people in the United States who don’t know the difference between a vaccine and a cure. But I digress. Don’t wait until your stuff is stolen before buying renter’s insurance. If you don’t know where to get renter’s insurance, just go to Google, and type in ‘renter’s insurance’ and the name of the city and state where you live, and you’ll get lots of results. Renter’s insurance is not hard to find. If you are a tenant, you need renter’s insurance!


What about the landlord’s insurance? Doesn’t he already have insurance on the building?
A lot of tenants don’t buy renter’s insurance in the mistaken belief that they already have coverage because the landlord has insurance on the property, but that is just wishful thinking. Sometimes a tenant will ask me: “Do you have fire insurance on this building?” I tell them: “Yes, I have fire insurance.” However, my insurance only protects me from loss, not you. If there is a fire, my insurance policy will pay me for the damage to the building and the personal property that belongs to me, like the refrigerator in your apartment. However, my insurance policy won’t pay you for the loss of your property. If there is a fire and your computer is reduced to a pile of melted plastic, you need your own insurance policy to get reimbursed for that. As I said, imagining that you don’t need renter’s insurance because your landlord has insurance on the property is just wishful thinking. Insurance doesn’t work that way.

COVID VACCINE VS. AN UNTUCKED SHIRT

Posted on by
Reply


As you probably know, the governors of some southern states are prohibiting public schools from requiring kids and teachers to wear face masks. In Florida and Texas, this prohibition is statewide despite the fact that these states have the most new Covid cases in the country. Most hospitals in Texas and Florida have no available ICU beds. The governors of Florida and Texas say that the reason they are doing this is because they are “opposed to government mandates“, but these states have the nation’s toughest school behavior mandates in the country. In a number of southern states, a public school student who is caught wearing his shirt over his pants instead of tucked in is subject to corporal punishment by teachers and school staff. Thousands of kids in Texas public schools are spanked, paddled, or beaten every year for offenses such as wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the cafeteria. In Mississippi, elementary school students have been sent to ‘juvie’ (a jail for juvenile criminals) for wearing the wrong color shoes. In Florida, children as young as 6 are subjected to corporal punishment. There are no regulations in Florida as to what instrument can be used to beat children with, and Florida schools do not need permission from parents to beat their kids. Southerners support these very harsh school mandates, but they become enraged when they are told to have their kids wear face masks at school because “we don’t believe in mandates.” Covid has killed over 600,000 Americans, but no child ever died from wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the school cafeteria. The logic of these people escapes me. Southerners love their children and don’t want them to get sick and die. I don’t get it. No foolin’. I really don’t get it.

About California. Here in California, corporal punishment is prohibited in public schools. When I tell my students that in a number of southern states, teachers can beat students with a wood paddle or a leather belt for wearing an untucked shirt, they don’t believe me. I can see it in their faces. They ask other teachers in the school and their parents if it is true. Once they get confirmation that it is true, they go silent and stare at me. Some of my students told me later that they made their parents promise not to move to the South, at least not until all the kids in the house graduate high school. Some adults laugh when I tell them that, but I can assure you that none of my 13-year old students laughs when I tell them that kids their age are beaten in schools in the South every day for offenses such as ‘horseplay on a school bus’, ‘flatulence in class’, wearing mismatched socks, or wearing an untucked shirt. 

MARK’S COVID VACCINATION ADVICE.

Posted on by
Reply

1. After you have had both of your shots, take a photo of your CDC vaccination card showing that you are fully vaccinated and leave the photo on your cell phone. Also, print up a few copies of your vaccination card as well and leave one of them in your wallet. It is my guess that pretty soon, people are going to need to show proof of vaccination in order to get into certain places, places like classrooms, dorms, gyms, airports, etc. Some European governments are already considering requiring foreign visitors to show proof of vaccination before they can enter the country. Some cruise ships are running again, but they are requiring passengers to produce proof of vaccination to get on board. Just last week, New York announced they will be issuing ‘vaccination passports.’ You will need one of them to get into large venues in New York, like Madison Square Garden and convention centers. Make sure you store your original vaccination card someplace where you won’t lose it. Treat it like a critical personal document.
2. Don’t make plans for the day after you get your shots, especially the second shot. About 1% of people who get the Moderna vaccine feel sick or feverish after the first shot, and 20% feel sick after the second shot. That included me. I was sick as a dog the day after my second shot.3. Don’t stop wearing a mask. Just because you are vaccinated, that doesn’t mean that you can’t give Covid to other people. A vaccinated person can still be a carrier of the virus. Over 1,000 Americans are still dying every day of Covid (as of March 1). Keep  1 or 2 spare masks in your pocket just in case the strings break. Mine break all the time.

COVID AND RESTAURANT FOOD CONTAINERS.Because restaurants are closed for in-person dining due to Covid, the amount of food people are eating at home in to-go plastic containers has exploded. Before the epidemic, I never had hot meals delivered to my house. Now, it seems, everybody is getting them, including me. But remember, most plastic to-go food containers are not microwavable. If you get food in a plastic container, and the food needs reheating, take the food out of the container and put it on a porcelain plate or bowl first. Some plastics will melt in a microwave oven. But much worse, some plastics release toxic chemicals into your food when the plastic gets hot! Don’t trust disposable plastic containers that say ‘microwavable’ on them. That just means the container won’t melt in your microwave oven. It is not a guarantee that the container won’t leach chemicals or microplastic particles into your food.
Microplastics. The average American eats about 5 grams of microplastic particles every week. That’s about the weight of a credit card. Eating food out of plastic containers and drinking beverages from plastic bottles are the major source of plastic in our diet. No one knows what the long effect is of eating all this plastic is. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find products in supermarkets that aren’t packaged in plastic. Until just a few years ago, most brands of mayonnaise, ketchup, and vegetable oil came in glass jars and bottles. Now, nearly all of them are in plastic. In 2017, global plastic production was 8 billion tons a year. By 2050, it is expected to increase to 35 billion tons, and less than 10% of all plastic is recycled.

THE TARSES THEORY OF VACCINATION.

Posted on by
Reply

Berkeley is a center of the anti-vax movement. The #1 and #2 schools in California within the highest percentage of unvaccinated children are both here in Berkeley. According to Berkeleyside, at the Berkeley Rose Waldorf School, only 29% of kindergartners have been vaccinated. This isn’t because the parents don’t understand the risks. These are pricey private schools, and almost all the parents have at least one college degree. This also isn’t because there is less need today for vaccinating children than there used to be. Measles cases in the U.S. are now at a 25 year high. So, will Berkeley parents get their kids vaccinated for Covid once the vaccine becomes generally available? Although I am constantly telling people not to play amateur doctor, I am going to do that now. I have come up with vaccination advice that is a compromise. I have something in it to please the doctors and something to please the anti-vaxxers. Here it is, the Tarses Theory of Vaccination: If you are a parent, you don’t need to vaccinate all your children. You only need to vaccinate the ones you want to keep. What do you think? Will that please everyone? Below is a famous photo of 2 boys, both age 16, taken around 1900. This photo appeared in newspapers around the world. Both boys were exposed to smallpox at the same time and from the same source. One boy was vaccinated. The other boy wasn’t.

COVID VACCINATION CERTIFICATES.


Saga Cruise Line has become the first cruise ship company to require that all passengers have proof of Covid vaccination. I expect that by summer, all the other cruise ship lines will require this as well. By Fall, I think we are all going to be carrying proof of vaccination in order to get into places, like colleges and dorms. My second guess is that society is going to have a lot of trouble from people into conspiracy theories, not just the anti-vaxxers. For example, a lot of websites claim that Covid vaccines contain tracking microchips or some voodoo drug that turns people into mindless zombies. Have you ever noticed that the more preposterous a conspiracy theory is, the more likely people are to believe it? It reminds me of Dr. Goebbel’s (Hitler’s propaganda minister) theory that people are far more likely to believe a big lie rather than a small one.

SOME GOOD NEWS – FOR A CHANGE!

Posted on by
Reply

The news lately has been very depressing lately – the Covid epidemic, police killings of unarmed black men, civil unrest, devastating fires, the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression – the list is endless. But the future isn’t completely bleak. Here are a few good things to think about.

Business Closings. A lot of neighborhood businesses have closed since the Covid epidemic began; however, 98% of all businesses that have closed since the epidemic began say that they plan to reopen. It is also important to remember that the failure rate for small businesses is always high. 1/2 of all small businesses fail within 5 years. The failure rate for restaurants is much higher. Over 1/2 of all independent restaurants fail within 1 year. It’s like that in both good times as well as bad.


Bankruptcies. A long list of big companies declared bankruptcy this year, but nearly all of these companies were in big financial trouble before the Covid epidemic began, and almost all of them had the same problem – they were drowning in junk bond debt: Hertz, Neiman Marcus, JCPenney, Chuck E. Cheese, GNC, Sur La Table, J. Crew, Gold’s Gym, 24 Hour Fitness, California Pizza Kitchen, to name a few. Just consider California Pizza Kitchen. If you divide their junk bond debt by the number of restaurants they own, it comes to $2 million per location. How can you make money running a pizza chain when you have $2 million of debt on every location? I sometimes wonder who buys junk bonds and why. Even in the best of times, a high percentage of junk bonds never get repaid. If you ever consider buying junk bonds, think about this one question first – Why do you think they are called ‘junk bonds’?

Progress Doesn’t Stop. Human progress doesn’t stop during epidemics. New products come to market. New things get invented. Scientists make important discoveries. People do productive things while they are in quarantine. In 1603 and 1606, there were plague epidemics in London that killed tens of thousands of people. One of the first things the government did was shut down all the theaters, just like now. While the theaters were closed, William Shakespeare was stuck at home, like everyone else in the entertainment business. While he was stuck at home, Shakespeare wrote King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra, Othello, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, and many other plays. Shakespeare’s most productive years were the plague years.

After the Epidemic. When epidemics are over, more often than not, life gets back to normal fairly quickly. Over 500,000 Americans died from the Spanish Flu, far more than have died so far from Covid. However, when the Spanish Flu epidemic ended in 1920, it had no lasting impact on the U.S. economy. In 1920, the U.S. economy took off in a period of great prosperity and economic expansion known as the ‘Roaring 20s’, and that continued for the rest of the decade.

MARK’S COVID MEDICAL ADVICE.

I am constantly telling people: ‘Don’t play amateur doctor’, but I am going to do that myself right now anyway. Here it is: Don’t leave home without a pen in your pocket. Viruses can live on nonporous surfaces like pens for several days. That means that the pen that a waiter or store clerk hands you so that you can sign a credit card receipt was probably used by dozens of other people before you. The same applies to pens in banks and post offices. And remember, flu season will soon be here. Of course, you know that stores and restaurants don’t sterilize their pens between customers. Think about that the next time a waiter hands you a pen.

FREEBIE OF THE MONTH. Infrared Digital Non-Contact Thermometer.

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone should have one of these right now, not just because of Covid, but also because flu season will soon be here. Most people have one of these at work, but do you have one at home? This model has 1-second instant reading, auto shutoff, backlight display, fever alarm, and a soft carrying bag. I am giving away one per rental unit, and I have enough for everyone.

SALES OF $100 CHOCOLATE BARS ARE COLLAPSING.

Posted on by
Reply

Due to the Covid epidemic, sales of very expensive chocolate bars have fallen off the cliff. Chocolate bars that sell for $100 or more are mostly sold in places that are now closed, places like luxury resorts, cruise ships, and duty-free shops. However, you can still buy most of these products online. Here’s where you can buy a To’ak Art Series chocolate bar. To’ak Chocolate. It’s $450. That seems like a lot of money (at least to me) for one chocolate bar, however, their packaging is much, much nicer than mine. Gift wrapping is extra. I don’t provide free gift wrapping, but if you are willing to pay me $450 for one of my chocolate bars, I will gift wrap it for free. To’ak Art Series Chocolate Bar.

SUR LA TABLE DECLARES BANKRUPTCY.
Sur La Table will be closing 50 of their 120 stores due to their recent bankruptcy filing. Like a lot of other chain stores that have recently declared bankruptcy, Sur La Table had a lot of junk debt. This is something that I predicted in my April newsletter. I expect that many more companies with heavy junk bond debt will be doing the same. I hope Sur La Table won’t close their Berkeley store. I like to browse around there, but I rarely buy anything there. They sell Fran’s sea salt chocolate covered caramels, an excellent product and Barack Obama’s favorite candy, but they cost $100 a pound. Sur La Table is the place to go in Berkeley if you want to buy a $500 kitchen knife or a $5,000 home coffee maker. Coffee Maker. I am not sure who buys this stuff. Although Berkeley is a college town, I don’t often see people of college age at Sur La Table, but then, how many college students buy $500 kitchen knives and $5,000 coffee makers?

WHAT WILL LIFE BE LIKE IN THE BAY AREA AFTER COVID19?

Posted on by
Reply

We all know that the driving force in the economy of the San Francisco bay area is the high-tech industry. The COVID19 epidemic has made big changes in the way that people in the high-tech industry live and work, and some of those changes will be permanent. Most high-tech workers in this area are now working at home, and many of them will never return to working at an office. Some San Francisco tech giants, including Twitter and Square, have told most of their employees that they can now work from home permanently.

HOUSING. The fact that high-tech company employees are now working at home explains why rents in some bay area cities are falling but not others. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco has fallen 9% since May, 2019. In Mountain View, average rent fell 16% and in Cupertino 14%. However, in Oakland, rents rose 5%, and rents in Berkeley are holding up too. In other words, rent is falling in cities where big tech companies are headquartered. Now that high tech employees are working from home, and many permanently, they can move to nearby cities where the rent is cheaper. The average 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco currently rents for $3,400 a month. See: Rent Jungle. However, the average 1-bedroom apartment in Oakland is $2,500 a month. A person working at the Salesforce Tower may have been willing to pay $4,000 a month for an apartment nearby for the convenience of being able to walk to work, but what about now? For a recent college graduate in a high tax bracket and with student loans to pay off, being able to save over $1,000 a month on rent by moving to the east bay is a no-brainer. No one knows when this epidemic will be over, and when it is over and tech companies have reopened their offices, how many people who are now working at home will go back to commuting to the office 5 days a week just like before? Some tech people working at home may feel that they can now move far away from the bay area to places where rent is really cheap, places like Lubbock, Texas; where you can rent a modern 1-bedroom apartment that’s walking distance from Texas Tech for $500 a month. Of course, a lot of high-tech people currently working at home will still need to live near Silicon Valley when this is over so that they can attend meetings and conferences. Plus, there are a lot of people who work at home 4 days a week but who have to go to the office 1 day a week. I know people like that. Besides, how many people would really want to move from Palo Alto to Lubbock?

OFFICE SPACE. If working from home becomes the new normal for the high-tech industry, what will happen to companies that rent office buildings in Silicon Valley and downtown San Francisco? What will happen to companies like We Work? And what will happen to the businesses near high-tech company headquarters that depend on income from the people who work there – or used to work there – places like spiffy bars and restaurants in San Francisco’s financial district?

A FEW GOOD PROJECTS.

If you are looking for things to do because you are spending more time at home now because of the virus, here are some good projects.

1. Emergency water. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, all the water mains in the city burst. Some people in San Francisco didn’t have potable water for months. What would you do if that happened today? Everyone who lives in earthquake country should have an emergency supply of water. Gallon jugs of water are very cheap. You can also just clean out empty plastic milk and juice jugs and fill them with water. Store water jugs in a basement or bike shed or garage just in case they leak.

2. Dump expired food & meds. What’s in the back of your refrigerator? When was the last time you went through your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets and dumped expired food or food that has gone bad? There are a lot of foods that people never check the expiration dates on because they think they are edible forever, products like ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, etc., but that isn’t true. All food goes bad with time. You should also go through your medicine cabinet and replace expired meds.

3. Clean out your closets. When was the last time you went through your closets and got rid of the stuff that you have no possible use for? I am constantly amazed at the stuff that people store in their closets. I once had a tenant who called me over because the light bulb in his living room closet wasn’t working. I couldn’t get to the light fixture because the closet was full of used paper shopping bags. I told the tenant that I would return to fix the light after he removed the bags from the closet. When I returned, there were piles of shopping bags all over the living room. It turned out that the problem was just a burned-out light bulb. I know several other people like this, people who never throw out shopping bags, no matter how many they already have. Some people will not throw out empty boxes either. I know someone with a basement filled to the ceiling with empty boxes.

4. Start a Goodwill box. Start putting things that you have no use for in a giveaway box so that everything is in one place. Ask yourself if the things in this box are actually salable or just junk. People leave junk at thrift stores at night that should go in their garbage can instead. Thrift stores have no use for cracked dishes, broken appliances, or old mattresses. It is illegal in California for stores to sell used mattresses. On the other hand, thrift stores may actually want your old shopping bags.