Random ramblings

(Some of you may have noticed that I struggle with the tone of these blog posts. The intention is to keep them short and pleasurable to read. But of late, the topics I have written about are serious, and it’s a challenge not to trivialize the issue while maintaining a somewhat flippant tone. More ominously, I sometimes realize that I start taking myself too seriously! And then I go back and edit out the pompous prose. But I suspect sometimes that quite a bit of it seeps through into the final post, and I apologize for that. My feeling is that this is going to be one of those.) COVID-19: How effective is my lockdown? Vehicular emissions and staying at home As I write this, stay-at-home orders of some sort are in effect in most large countries around the world. At the draconian end, surprisingly, are a few liberal economies of Europe, where you need curfew passes to step out. At the other end is libertarian Sweden, where people have been trusted to do what they feel is right...

(This post is an attempt at light-heartedness in the midst of a global tragedy. This is my way of keeping myself from thinking morbid thoughts. If this piece distracts you, makes you smile, even for a few moments, it would have served its purpose.) COVID-19, lockdowns, and home workouts If you have reached this page looking for ways to exercise in your home during your confinement, please accept my sincere apologies. The intent of this piece was to merely reassure myself that people like us aren’t freaks, and are to be found all over the world. Which, I found to my dismay, is not true. But the internet is a seductive tool, and offers up much else that appears to be grist for the mill, particularly to an idle (and biased) mind! So, it ended up being a little more fun than that. As over half the world is in some form of lockdown, I wanted to see if people were looking for ways to exercise within their homes. As everyone knows, the go to place for indulging oneself in such inconse...

COVID-19, cognitive dissonance, and coping “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function” F Scott Fitzgerald Thanks to social media, there are about as many views on the COVID-19 pandemic as there are people. Many of these play to our collective wishful thinking (“this is little more than seasonal flu; we are overreacting!”), and some even convince us by their quasi-scientific reasonableness. And then there are some true experts, who make their case with data (“dying of versus dying with COVID-19”; https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ ). On the other hand we have the messages from world leaders, who have all, rather unusually, sprung into action. And even if we don’t take their word about the gravity of the situation, there is the constant barrage of image...