Tax cheats

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“By systematically defunding the IRS, rich tax cheats and their allies in Congress have all but guaranteed that they won’t ever have to pay what they owe. We’re not talking about loopholes or manipulation of the tax code. Just plain old illegal tax evasion. Unless something changes, over the next decade, they’ll steal $7.5 trillion from the American people, and most of that theft will be committed by the top 1% of earners.

“Our country can raise trillions of dollars just by making sure the rich pay what they owe.” (Patriotic Millionaires, 11 December 2020).

My comment: It’s bad enough having such a huge gulf between rich and poor, but our elected representatives, instead of being champions of the sick, poor, the homeless and financially struggling, are in cahoots with the super-rich, casting a blind eye on tax fraud, making the wealth gap worse, and in hoc to them rich for election expenses. Just at this very moment Congress (for Congress read senate Republican
) are rejecting proposals to help the covid-struck poor through the current health crisis. UnEpicurean. Also un-Christian.

No, I’m not supposed to talk party politics, but I consider this to be about common sense, decency, thoughtfulness of others and building a healthy nation.

The mutant strain of covid from Spain

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A mutated strain of Covid-19 carried by holidaymakers returning from Spain could be partially responsible for the current “second wave” in Europe, a study has suggested. Like all viruses, SARS-CoV-2 mutates as it replicates inside its human hosts. Now it appears that a variant called 20A.EU1, first detected in farm workers in northern Spain in June, is the dominant strain across much of Europe. The Swiss/Spanish study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that in September it was present in 40% to 70% of cases in Switzerland, Ireland and the UK. The mutation’s features include an alteration to the spike protein which the virus uses to latch onto cells. However, it remains unclear if this affects its transmission rate, or the symptoms it causes. (The Week, 7 November 2020)

Comment: In all the rejoicing we have seen about the successful approval of the vaccines, nobody has assured us that the latter works with the mutated strain. And if it has mutated that quickly who is to say it won’t do so again before the bulk of the population has a vaccine available to it? I absolutely want to be vaccinated, and have no sympathy with anti-vaccers. Just asking.

How Covid has opened prison doors

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America locks away far more people – about 2.1 million – than any other nation. But the pandemic could be what finally caused it to unwind its “signature practice of mass incarceration”.

In the spring, the rapid spread of Covid-19 forced officials to take radical steps to reduce prison overcrowding. Inmates were released early; and wrongdoers who’d normally have been sent to jail were given non-custodial terms instead. As a result, the population of the country’s local jails and state prisons plunged by 170,000 between February and May.

Since then, officials in some areas have abandoned these measures, and started refilling their jails again. But others are thinking of making the temporary reforms permanent: issuing fines for minor, non-violent offences, making more use of drug rehabilitation programmes, and – crucially – only jailing people once they are convicted. Currently, local jails “hold more than 480,000 people awaiting trial”. Still “legally presumed innocent”, they make up about two-thirds of the local jail population. Critics say that freeing more inmates will lead to a surge in crime, but there’s little evidence of it yet. Either way, Covid has provided the US with an opportunity to at least experiment with “decarceration”. (Lind So, Reuters and The Week, 7 November 2020)

My comment: Many people who are incarcerated have mental problems and should be treated medically. Others are very young, and jailing them probably makes them crooks for life, when in fact they made a stupid mistake and, with training and better education, they could prove to be useful citizens. And then, of course, you have the thorny matter of race and racism.
For heavens sake – more rehabilitation! Give these people a chance to go straight.

A strange dinner in China

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Comedian Bill Bailey is deeply serious about wildlife. He campaigns for various animal charities, and his home in west London doubles up as an informal animal sanctuary. It’s a passion that has led him into some bizarre situations.

On a tour of China in 2012, for instance, he was invited to a restaurant where Eurasian eagle owl was on the menu. He ordered the bird, “and before they cooked it I said, ‘No, I want it to take away’, so they wrapped this live bird in parcel paper and we drove off with it in a taxi.” In the car, he rang an expert, who said the owl could probably be safely released if it wasn’t traumatised. “It wasn’t depressed – it was just trying to rip its way through the paper with these gigantic talons, so we drove to some woodland and let it go.

That restaurant visit cost me about £200 and we didn’t even get a meal, but I like to think we did the right thing…”
(Michael Odell in The Times, and The Week, 7 November 2020)

Comment: Nice to read a harmless, cheerful piece of news. Must look for more, if such exist!

Face shields are “not effective”

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Face shields have been recommended for use by hairdressers, and are worn by teachers in some schools. But plastic face shields are not effective at stopping airborne droplets from escaping from an infected person’s mouth, according to a study in Japan.

Computer simulations showed that almost 100% of droplets under five micrometres (released when people talk and breathe) got past the visor, along with 50% of the larger droplets (over 50 micrometres) that are released with coughs and sneezes. The World Health Organisation says the shields, which do not completely cover the face, should be used with a mask. (The Week, 3 October 2020)

My comment: I posted the above wondering what the point of a face shield would be if you had to wear a mask with it. The reader is probably thinking the same. Why don’t they test these things before they sell them?