Dear Friends,

I'm beginning to realize that the vast majority of US citizens do not like to get any unsolicited advice, or even solicited advice.  As my stepson says, half in fun, Don't tell me what to do!  (Of course, I jolly well tell him what to do, because he's using my equipment, and however ignorant I may be, it is my equipment, dammit ...)

Over the last two weeks, I haven't posted anything, and that's because what I do is react to what's happening, and though our fearless Sort-Of-Leader, President Trump, does various things from time to time, none of it is unexpected or different, and I would find myself thinking the same old thoughts about him, and by now you guys could almost predict what I was going to say, and that would dilute the effect of what I would say the next time I really had something important to say.

Many writers in the newspapers seem to think that Trump is just interested in

• helping Business, and rich folk;
• building up an enormous PAC, which he could use for anything he wants, and
• staying in the public eye, just like TV personalities who are particularly fragile.

Where have they been?  We knew all this in 2017, and even earlier.  Even Dr. Mary Trump revealed very little we didn't already know.  (She was mostly interested in deflecting criticism from the entire Trump family, and focusing it on Trump himself, which, though it elicits a snicker from me, is a reasonable goal.  I don't think Trump's foolishness and viciousness has its roots in his genes.) 

But now, Democrats are getting nervous about the runoff elections in Georgia, where two Democrat candidates for Senator are running against two Republican candidates; a race that might mean that the Senate has no definite majority, or that the Senate has a Democrat majority.  (I'm a little vague on this; please check this out yourselves.)

Now listen.  I am unhappy with the idea of telling people how to vote.  It is too much of a responsibility; if whoever I advised becomes dissatisfied, over the next few years, as to how the election turned out, or how the candidate for whom I advocated performed in office, then they're unlikely to accept my advice in the future, and will certainly be confused about their political beliefs.  Each person should vote according to his or her own beliefs, and adjust those beliefs according to their experience, and their own calculations.

I am quite comfortable telling people to go to the polls, however.  I sincerely hope that those who went to the polls this November (after not having voted before, or not having voted even for a long time), are satisfied with the results.  So, Georgians (in the State of Georgia; not those sad souls in the Republic of Georgia), by all means vote.  (Georgians in the Republic of Georgia, I did not mean to discourage you from voting in your own elections!  Good luck!)

The progress of the COVID epidemic has really show us a couple of things.  Firstly, how important an understanding of basic hygiene, especially the mechanism of disease contagion---how it spreads, and the physics and the biology of dispersion of what we call "germs"---is, for everybody's safety.  How germs multiply: that is biology; basic cell biology.  Some people have understood the facts from their interest, or from grade school, or from quick explanations in the news.  Others haven't a clue, but get a rough idea from their friends.  How the germs go from one person to another: that's physics.  If the germs are carried in moisture droplets, we need to know how moisture droplets travel in the air.  All this needs a moderate knowledge of physics.

People do not understand anything they are uninterested in.  Having been a teacher for 40 years, and a student for 25, I know this for a fact.  If a significant proportion of the population rejects the need for learning physics, for example, then I suppose their subconscious belief is that somebody---society, or their elected leaders, or their friends, or god, or some agent---will protect them from the consequences of their ignorance.  After all, this is a Free Country, and everybody (supposedly) has the freedom to be (selectively) ignorant.

Secondly, a lot of our fellow-citizens, those who are fierce proponents of (what they perceive as) American Freedom, are more concerned with their own freedom to do something, and everyone else's duty to allow those freedoms, than the other way around.  Everyone knows that freedom of one individual requires restraint from another individual.

There's the story of a man who was swinging his umbrella, and knocked off the hat of another person walking past.

"It's a free country," said the umbrella-swinger.  "I have the right to swing my umbrella if I wish."

"Your freedom ends," said the one whose hat had been knocked off, "where my hat begins."

The story is illustrated at right, with one protagonist's nose substituted for the hat.

An important change in how the very American concept of personal freedom is taught has to be that, in order that more than one single person should have freedom, the freedom of all individuals must have limits.  In the very practical case of distancing, or limiting travel, or wearing masks, all of which are vehemently opposed by people with normally quite reasonable dispositions, the right to not toe the line suggested by the authorities has to be balanced against the safety of the community.