Covid and privilege

One thing that the covid crisis has shone a light on is privilege of many sorts.  The death toll goes across all demographics, but the trend is clear - those with less privilege are dying far more often.  Poor people, people of colour, homeless people, these are the ones dying far more often than white rich folks.  As I understand it this is one of the few situations where men don't have extra benefits - they are dying more of covid than women are.

When we talk about the crisis we should think carefully about what privilege we have that impacts it.  I see many people talking about how others ought to behave, and those statements are usually coloured by the speaker's position in life.  Those living with partners strongly object to people seeing anybody outside their home and can't imagine why anyone would.  Certainly there are risks to doing so, but if you are partnered and have somebody around to meet your needs for sex, cuddling, hugging, and whatever else you should be cautious to judge those who don't.

It is easy to talk about never leaving your house when you have somebody at home with you, but telling someone that they should simply never have human contact for months or even a year is a harsh thing when they live alone.  We know that telling teenagers that abstinence is the only way is a failure of strategy, and the same applies here.

That doesn't mean we should all be going to orgies, obviously.  It does mean that we have to accept that human contact is necessary for manypeople, and if you find that easy to get, you should hesitate to judge those who don't.

The same sort of thing applies with wealth.  If you have children and you live in a house with a yard this pandemic is drastically easier than if you are trying to cope with them in a 2 bedroom apartment.  Telling someone that they have to sit in the same physical space as their kids for months or a year is a completely different thing when you can retreat to a study, send them to the yard, or go exercise in the garage.  When you literally can't get more than 4 meters from them, the situation is not the same.

We don't tax people by charging everybody 20k in taxes and just accepting that this crushes the poor and barely tickles the rich.  We charge a percentage, asking those who have more to contribute more.  Something of the same philosophy needs to be considered with the crisis.  Nobody has a pass to going to parties with random people, but people in challenging circumstances should have more flexibility in how they cope than those who have it easier.

There are all kinds of ways we should apply this.  If you are a knowledge worker with highly desirable skills, you need to accept that someone with precarious employment is going to need to return to work sooner.  Surely there are many other kinds of examples, but the general key is to keep in mind that people's circumstances can be wildly different from your own, and that just because you don't find a rule a problem doesn't mean that it is workable for everyone.

I support strong precautions against covid, and I think we should definitely deal with it by implementing universal basic income.  I don't think we should reopen the economy quickly.  I do think though that we should all be careful how we judge others behaviour when they clearly have far less privilege than we do.  Nobody needs parties or conventions, but we do need security and contact, for starters, and we all should put a lot of effort into removing risk, while accepting that someone else may not have the resources to give as much as we do.

How to covid

There are degrees of doing social distancing.  Some people have to go to work and wear face shields.  Some people stay home all day and only leave to get groceries.

And some people work in home offices at their dining table surrounded by cubicle walls made of toilet paper.

This wasn't even done for comedy's sake.  Wendy needed walls to separate out the rest of the place from her work zone, and we didn't have anything else that would make such an appropriate makeshift wall.  The wall needed to be opaque, light, easy to set up and move, and unlikely to fall over.  There is literally nothing else in our place that would do.

Pinkie Pie even made a new Do Not Disturb sign for the wall, but unfortunately our printer is dying so we couldn't print it out effectively.  However, here it is, an example of Pinkie Pie's new proficiency with her graphic design program.

This size of condo seemed ideal back when it was just two people living here.  All the space we would ever need!  But nowadays I am cursing myself for not having invested more in a place with just one more room in it.

Sparkly and clean - for now

Awhile ago I had a battle with pigeons on my balcony.  They were roosting in groups, laid an egg in a flower pot, and had thoroughly coated the balcony with poop.  I pulled all the balcony funiture inside to deny them hiding spots, and they stopped coming by.

A few days ago I decided it was time to get things looking shiny out there again.

After four rounds of mopping, two rounds of sweeping, and two rounds of poop scrubbing, the place finally looks good again.  Getting the railing windows clean was tricky!  I could squeegee the top 80% of the outside, but that last 20% was going to involve significant risk of going over the edge.  Wendy and I managed to do a passable job my bending our arms under the railing though.

And now I can spend some of my quarantine time doing this:

Critter likes hanging out in the sun, and he likes sitting on people, so this is two of his favourite things combined together.  I love being naked, and I love sitting in the heat, but unfortunately people get all flustered when I am naked, so I have a minimal amount of clothing on to avoid confrontations... but I do have the sun on my skin and a fuzzy critter, so all is well.

And now the weather service has announced an upcoming shift towards unseasonably colder weather again.  Bring on the heat, I say!

Here's hoping that with the balcony furniture back outside again we don't get a return of the pigeons.  Neither side will prosper in that particular war.