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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

In Perspective, Planet: Looking back on 2021

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So how have we failed?

With Covid 19 in its second Year, millions dead world wide, 850,000 alone in the USA, a wickedly lethal Delta variant, a rapidly spreading Omicron mutant even to the vaccinated, has strews as to the nth.

So how are we managing?

A8BBD75A-5D49-4751-9846-2F3039770E38.jpeg


 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
My family account: a brother and sister died of Covid, but were aged.

One son, his wife and two kids returned from skiing vacation early: all with Covid-19 inspite of at least two shots. None severely ill! Thanks to vaccine!

My plumber, an avid sportsman and marathon runner with long Covid, now in a fog, can’t think straight and his wife is now married to a teenager!

My wife works from home doing Neuropsychiatric outreach educational Program for UCLA Semel Institute. Goes in twice a week to keep territory of office space in her realm!

I have less fortune in getting models as one can’t engage so well to masked strangers passing cautiously, scared of infection!

Also my true and trusted Studio assistants have moved!
 
Where I live, we are doing relatively okay compared to the big cities, also because we are far away. But some people had friends from the big city over and parties in December and covid has spread.

I don't know anyone that has died from it but again, since our location, we have been extremely lucky and have very low death counts.

Restaurants that were open to vaccinated people closed December 26th until further notice. Also closed all theaters, sports, arenas, gyms.

We also have a curfew from 10pm to 5am, which may end soon.

A friend that I usually have coffee with got covid, but double vaccinated, had only mild symptoms.

My son has a friend that helped him put in a new battery in this car, had tested positive for asymptomatic covid, so my son had to isolate for 5 days.

We just got a box of 5 tests which the government provides a box per household each month for free. (I've read that you have to pay for tests in the US, is this right? )

The provincial government is saying that it is going to tax unvaccinated people because they are the lion-share of Covid ICU cases, although about 90% of people in Quebec
are double vaccinated.

Many of us, are also triple vaccinated with a booster, as I am.

Obviously difficult is hugging and kissing was a part of our encounters before Covid, not at all since. What I'd give for a nice long hug! :-D

But I think that knowing that all of us are going through this helps as we feel less alone.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
We don’t have draconian curfews here. Americans woukd riot and burn police stations!

The people GETTING Covid may be mostly vaccinated but those taking away available ICU beds and causing hospitals to ration needed surgeries are mostly unvaccinated. That’s why they should pay a fine. If we get vaccinated, then why should they then take over the limited emergency high level hospital beds meant for childbirth complications like DVT or pulmonary embolus, heart attacks or other grave conditions requiring intensive care.

The selfishness of the unvaccinated are results in teachers being terrified to go to school and nurses and doctors getting worn down.

A phenomenon has developed of nurses checking into hotel rooms after work to cry from the loss of life and try to recompose before going home to their children.

Several generations of medical professionals are being subject to continuous emotional trauma and fighting exhaustion and burn out!
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
We have curfews and even lockdowns across Europe (I think only the Netherlands had a real lockdown). In Bavaria, bars are closed and restaurants must close at 10pm. We did not have the Oktoberfest. We wear masks in shops, we need a vaccine certificate for travel, museums and theatres. We did not have Christmas markets. We have some tourists, but certainly not as many as we used to. I passed near the Hofbräuhaus last week and most tourist shops were closed.

I am fortunate in that nobody I know personally died from covid or suffered permanent disabilities. Two friends tested positive for omicron in the past month, but they were vaccinated and it was nothing but a cold for them. I am not particularly worried for myself, I am vaccinated three times and have no known risk. I avoid crowds nevertheless. I work at home, my employer made it compulsory last December. I may actually have got covid at the beginning of 2020, as I had a bit of a cold after having met a friend who lost his sense of smell shortly after, but no tests were available at the time so I will never know. My mother, who is over 80 with bad lungs also had a cold around these times and for her we will never know either.

As far as I know there are still places in ICUs. I actually needed to go to the hospital myself, I broke a collarbone (clavicula) in 2019, it was fixed with a metal plate and I needed it removed. I managed to time the operation between covid peaks, so everything went fine. I have heard that a proportion of staff is leaving the hospital, particularly nurses. The pay is low and the stress is high, so people quit.

I worry a bit about "the economy", in which direction our societies are evolving, etc... It seems that we will wake up in a world quite different to the one we left at the end of 2019. But this thread is about looking back and not looking into the future.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jérôme,

Europe and Canada seem far harsher than here in the USA.

We have no curfews. We dine in Beverly Hills, as if we’re in Paris on extended vacation

Our many popular restaurants in are packed in new massive sidewalk expansions often taking over the nearest traffic or parking lane, now built up level with the sidewalks. Tables are separated by plastic shields or boxes of tall plants and generous outdoor has heated keep us cozy when it’s cold!

Servers are masked of course!

But the virus is peaking and spreading rapidly.

Folk or angry to have skiing holidays skiing, cut short, when the entire family is suddenly sick. But they come home, take Tylenol, (paracetamol), for fever and recover in 1-2 weeks like having a mild to severe flu but the vaccinated don’t get ill enough to go to the hospital!

Plumbers, workers who support Trump, (as if that qualifies them as bona fide members of an “Ayrian fitness club”, defiantly avoid vaccination and so suffer effects of severe illness of their entire family, a 2-7 week absence from work and in one case providing their wife with a 14 year old husband!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Europe and Canada seem far harsher than here in the USA.

It depends where in Europe. I think that the UK has little restrictions.

Our many popular restaurants in are packed in new massive sidewalk expansions often taking over the nearest traffic or parking lane, now built up level with the sidewalks. Tables are separated by plastic shields or boxes of tall plants and generous outdoor has heated keep us cozy when it’s cold!

We have the same here in Munich, I think I posted pictures on this forum. But they are not popular by winter temperatures.

Plumbers, workers who support Trump

I'll say this again: Trump and, generally, populism, is a symptom of a bigger problem.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
It depends where in Europe. I think that the UK has little restrictions.



We have the same here in Munich, I think I posted pictures on this forum. But they are not popular by winter temperatures.



I'll say this again: Trump and, generally, populism, is a symptom of a bigger problem.
Is it because humans, as hunter gatherers, we’re lead by those who we’re skilled and canny in building alliances?

For times of imbalance and dissatisfaction, those who could recruit the most support can beat those who can count the stars!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Is it because humans, as hunter gatherers, we’re lead by those who we’re skilled and canny in building alliances?

I think it is much simpler than that. You were talking about "the workers who support Trump" (and one can replace "Trump" by several other local politicians in other countries). The word "worker" is important.

So you have "workers", meaning entrepreneurs who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their family by their hard work. On the other side of the equation you have politicians who basically all have the same message: "there is no alternative", "world economy" and, by all accounts, only appear to care for the extremely super-rich. The workers are an easy prey for anyone with empty promises.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I think it is much simpler than that. You were talking about "the workers who support Trump" (and one can replace "Trump" by several other local politicians in other countries). The word "worker" is important.

So you have "workers", meaning entrepreneurs who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their family by their hard work. On the other side of the equation you have politicians who basically all have the same message: "there is no alternative", "world economy" and, by all accounts, only appear to care for the extremely super-rich. The workers are an easy prey for anyone with empty promises.
But the shocking thing then is that a thriving pluralistic educated glorious society such as the Weimar Republic, can get wiped out in one or two elections by a rabble rouser given a scholarship by Henry Ford to write Mein Kamph in the Wagner estate, groomed by them and right wing aristocracy, army generals, industrialists and politicians!

We have the right wing and “born again Christians” doing similarly for Donald Trump in the USA! We are just 2 elections away from a possible loss of democracy
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Indeed one can make a parallel with the Weimar Republic. Here an historic picture:

fft100mrdmark.jpg

A failed Austrian postcard painter took great advantage of the dire situation of the times. When the poor and the middle class become destitute and only the rich get richer, democracy will stop. It simply is not in the interest of large segments of the electorate to maintain a system which goes against their interests. That is the underlying cause, I think.

Obviously, I agree that the next system is markedly worse.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So how can we learn? It’s sll

France with a Jewish (origin) right wing hater of Muslims beating out the usual far right haters makes me shudder!

The ten richest men her in USA doubled their wealth during the Pandemic.

Perhaps the solution is a basic living wave for everyone!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I suppose that you are talking about Eric Zemmour.

As the the basic living wage, this is certainly not what the "workers" want. Just ask your plumber what he thinks about it.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I suppose that you are talking about Eric Zemmour.

As the the basic living wage, this is certainly not what the "workers" want. Just ask your plumber what he thinks about it.
He’s just angry and hates anyone not like him but he doesn’t read fascist literature and likely never hear of Karl Marx either!
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Something else. In spite of the pandemics, there is an enormous amount of massive construction works in Munich at present. I wonder if such is also the case in other large cities.
 
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