Margins of victory in close states in the US Presidential Election in November 2020

In the election in November, President-Elect Joe Biden's margin of victory over President Donald Trump was 2.78% in Michigan and 2.39% in Nevada. Those are the two largest margins in states that Trump and his cronies have been challenging since the count shifted in Biden's favor in the predicted "blue shift" in the days following Election Day, with the other four states having closer margins (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia, from largest to smallest). But if those results deserve to be challenged on the grounds of alleged voter fraud, so does the result in North Carolina, where Trump's margin of victory was 1.35%, but no Republicans are challenging the results there. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 4 January 2021)

Bursts of Bob Weir feedback, Ventura 1984

At the Grateful Dead's Ventura show on 22 July 1984, I was so thrilled by the mid-second-set sequence of "Terrapin Station", "Drums", "Space", and "Morning Dew" that I eventually put it on one side of what became my most-played Dead tape. Every time I listen to it I rediscover the perfect bursts of feedback from Bob Weir in the Terrapin coda and just as Dew begins. I often copied it for friends, so when I found the show on the Internet Archive, I loved reading someone's comment saying they'd once had that very sequence on a side of a tape and had always appreciated whoever'd had the idea of doing so. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 3 January 2021)

 

 

The money-lender's "mean and paltry lie" in "Nicholas Nickleby"

Ralph Nickleby, the money-hungry uncle of the title character in Charles Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby", argues against what he calls "the cant of the lying world" that money-lenders like him grow rich "by dissimulation and fawning". On the contrary, he sees "the money-borrowers" themselves as the ones who tell "mean and paltry lies." From one angle, this makes sense: borrowers often tell many stories to lenders about when they can pay their debts. But Ralph isn't just a "money-lender"; he's a speculator who actually does trick people out of their money. His self-defense is thus the "mean and paltry lie" of a confidence man accusing his victims of what he himself does. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 2 January 2021)

A year of 111 words per day

My writing of 111 words every day began one year ago today as preparation for a course I taught in the spring; as I was going to have my students write 111 words a day, I thought I should try it out myself, too. At first, then, it was an exploration and demonstration of the possibilities of a form, but over time, unsurprisingly, it became a kind of intellectual diary. And since I posted all my 111-word texts on Facebook, I can look forward to rereading these diary entries in my Facebook Memories, too. And this coming term, I'm teaching the course again, after it was a great success last spring. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 1 January 2021)

"Wear masks when going out": The first public statement about the "novel coronavirus"

The first public statement about what would later be identified as a "novel coronavirus" was made on 31 December 2019 by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. The text is in Chinese; here's a Google translation: "Recently, some medical institutions found that multiple cases of pneumonia received were related to South China Seafood City." The suggested measures for the public to take are striking: "The disease is preventable and controllable, keep indoor air circulation for prevention, avoid closed public places and crowded places with poor air circulation, and wear masks when going out." Right from the beginning, then, wearing masks was proposed as a way to combat the spread of the virus. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 31 December)

 

The full translation:

 

Notification of Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on the current situation of pneumonia in our city

Issuing agency: Wuhan Municipal Health Commission | Release time: 2019-12-31 13:38:05

 

Recently, some medical institutions found that multiple cases of pneumonia received were related to South China Seafood City. After receiving the report, the Municipal Health Commission immediately carried out case searches and retrospective investigations related to South China Seafood City in the city’s medical and health institutions. Twenty-seven cases have been found, of which 7 are in serious condition, the remaining cases are stable and controllable, and 2 cases have improved and are scheduled to be discharged in the near future. The clinical manifestations of the cases were mainly fever, a few patients had difficulty breathing, and chest radiographs showed infiltrating foci of both lungs. At present, all cases have been treated in isolation, follow-up investigation and medical observation of close contacts are underway, and hygienic investigation and environmental sanitation treatment of South China Seafood City are underway.

 

Wuhan City organizes consultations with clinical medicine, epidemiology, and virology experts from Tongji Hospital, Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan Infectious Disease Hospital, and Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The experts return from illness and treatment. , Epidemiological investigations, preliminary laboratory tests and other aspects of the analysis believe that the above cases are viral pneumonia. The investigation so far has not found obvious human-to-human transmission, and no medical staff infection has been found. At present, the detection of the pathogen and the investigation of the cause of infection are underway.

 

Viral pneumonia is more common in winter and spring, and can be sporadic or outbreak. The main clinical manifestations are fever, body aches, a small number of breathing difficulties, and lung infiltration. Viral pneumonia is related to the virulence of the virus, the route of infection, and the age and immune status of the host. Viruses that cause viral pneumonia are influenza viruses. The others are parainfluenza viruses, cytomegaloviruses, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, and coronaviruses. The diagnosis depends on pathogenic tests, including virus isolation, serological tests, and virus antigen and nucleic acid tests. The disease is preventable and controllable, keep indoor air circulation for prevention, avoid closed public places and crowded places with poor air circulation, and wear masks when going out. Clinically, symptomatic treatment is the mainstay, and bed rest is required. If you have the above symptoms, especially if the fever persists, you should go to a medical institution in time.

 

On mondegreens and eggcorns, and how people talk about them

Misunderstood phrases in songs ("kiss this guy" for "kiss the sky" in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze") are "mondegreens", which comes from "laid him on the green" for "Lady Mondegreen". Whenever they come up, mondegreens are always treated as humorous. Some misunderstood phrases in speech get written down later ("lame man's terms" for "layman's terms") and are then called "eggcorns" (as a replacement for "acorn"). But whenever they come up, eggcorns are always treated as ridiculous. The mechanism is the same (misunderstanding a phrase and trying to make sense of it, often unconsciously), but the two cases are treated completely differently, even though they are equally creative responses to difficulties in comprehension. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 30 December)

Treating science as if it were magic in the pandemic and in the climate catastrophe

It's easy to call politicians hypocrites for getting the coronavirus vaccination after having called the pandemic a hoax or dismissed the concerns of epidemiologists and other public-health professionals throughout the year. Such people have complained about measures that force people to change their behavior, such as lockdowns and the wearing of masks, but they are happy to take a step that requires only two shots. These people often also object to any climate-catastrophe measures that would change people's everyday lives, while also appealing to grand technological solutions like carbon capture that would make a transformation of the petroleum-based economic system unnecessary. Ultimately, even when they appeal to science, they expect magic. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 29 December)