Io Saturnalia

So, we have made it past the Winter Solstice. Shopping is done, the children who live with me all have their presents. I still need to send the presents to the children who live with my first ex-wife. I have not heard from them much. I hoped once upon a time they could enter their comments here, and perhaps we could develop a distance relationship this way. It hasn't worked out.

Early winter is commonly a time of depression. That is why we, and before us Scandanavian/English Yule,and the Roman/Saturnalia, celebrate riotous holidays in that window. A really gripping orgy would shut down the bad feedback loops which drive one to inaction and melancholy. On the other hand, religions with their start in the southern deserts had more austere holidays. Eid which supposedly bans even eating during the day, milks depression, but turns the longer nights into a party. As an austere desert religion moves north, the winter holiday becomes more raucous.

We, for all our pretensions, are still trapped in a monkey body. Though we create an image of G-d in our own likeness, our deepest desires are still that of a frightened monkey, scavenging from larger predators on the African plains. That is what we were only a million years ago. The progress we have made in the last few years is amazing. It is no wonder that conservative religious belief has trouble adapting.

Letters to My Children

Letters to My Children


I started the above because my older children were withheld from me and I was sad. I thought I would write things to say to them. I am not by nature a wordy person. As time went on, life continued, and my memory of my children dimmed. I had less to say, to them and more to say to my younger children.

I try not to think about it too much, but I really miss the notion that I had of what my life with my older children would be. They have grown, and are now successful and functioning adults. In many ways, that is all I could have hoped for.

We find the projections of death going down on the Wuhan coronavirus. The projections from the Diamond Princess (10 dead from 4000) adjusted by the slant to the older demographic you see in cruise lines still appears to be pretty valid. Once again, we see that some good data is a lot better than a whole bunch of bad data. Italy produced bad data, with everyone who died being nearly assumed to have had Wuhan coronavirus. Germany is producing bad data, with everyone who dies, being tagged with a different cause of death whenever possible. China and Iran are producing laughable data, as many die, and the government is covering it up. Bad hygiene is bad. Wash you hands. The US practice of a daily shower, and washing hands after using the toilet doesn't look so bad after all.