Blog – More Than the Flu

Plan for the Future

The Centre Does Not Hold

A hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats wrote an apocalyptic poem with the haunting lines: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” It was 1919 and there was, like today, a raging pandemic. Yeats’ pregnant wife caught the virus and nearly died. World War I had left all of Europe exhausted, depleted, and in economic ruin. Meanwhile, in Yeats’ Ireland the rebellion against

June 27, 2020 No Comments

Plan for the Future

Richard Feynman & Unhealthy Systems

I figured out how to solve the current COVID-19 crisis. Resurrect Richard Feynman from the grave. Who? Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was a clown, a quantum physicist, an atheist, and one of the sharpest minds of the twentieth century. He was famous for playing bongos and infamous for picking the top-secret file cabinet locks and leaving ‘got-cha’ notes at Los Alamos where he helped develop the world’s first atomic bomb. They couldn’t fire him, though, because

June 27, 2020 No Comments

Coronavirus

Winning against COVID, elsewhere

A friend of mine recently shared what’s happening in Vietnam where his son lives. When coronavirus came to that country of 100 million (about a third the population of the US) the government immediately responded to the crisis and began following WHO recommendations. They pushed social distancing, moved schools online, and had temperature checks at the entry points of public squares and markets. Further, anyone caught not wearing a mask in public is given a

June 15, 2020 No Comments

Coronavirus

The Science of Masks

There’s a lot of bad science out there, particularly regarding masks. One FB post making the rounds says that since the coronavirus is around a tenth of a micron and N95 masks work in the .25micron range, that they are ineffective. Logical, but wrong. What we know of this virus is that it hitches a ride on water droplets which are in the size range to be effectively slowed or stopped by masks. N95 masks

May 29, 2020 No Comments

Coronavirus

What You Need to Know

When a burglar comes in through the window, locking the door isn’t much help. Trump’s response to the coronavirus has been to lock-down the borders against the countries he’s mad at. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. We get it from other Americans breathing on us. Of the 100,000 people who have died, a handful or less contracted it from a recent arrival from a foreign country. The majority of the rest got it from someone

May 27, 2020 No Comments

Fixing Church

Prayer and the President

America needs to pray. Please, Mr. President, don’t tell me when or where. The Whitehouse has left a key component out of its guidelines about reopening: the way the virus multiplies when you pack people into indoor spaces. There is an exponential quality to it. If you double the number of people in a room or double the amount of time they spend in that room, you more than quadruple the chance of infection because

May 23, 2020 No Comments

Coronavirus

Reopening Lessons – May 13th

That reopening doesn’t mean everyone, everywhere, and some businesses may never come back. That we still have to wear masks. That when churches reopen, they may be limited to 25 to 100 (pick your number, the smaller the better) in a gathering. That we shouldn’t sing in public (see https://morethantheflu.com/taking-a-chance-on-choir/ ) That reopening too soon will cost lives, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Until there is more testing and contact tracing, meat processing plants, nursing

May 13, 2020 No Comments

Fixing Church

Taking a Chance on Choir?

There is a reason why church leaders should be cautious about returning to the same type of worship services as they had before the lock down. Group singing spreads the virus and having a moderate sized congregation spend an hour together within an enclosed space is too high of risk for the foreseeable future. Consider what happened in Skagit County, Washington on March 10th of this year. A 121-member choir decided to have their usual

May 13, 2020 No Comments

Spiritual Life & Ethics

A Global Perspective on COVID-19

From the Dalai Lama: Every sentient being is acquainted with suffering and the truths of sickness, old age and death. But as human beings, we have the capacity to use our minds to conquer anger and panic and greed. In recent years I have been stressing “emotional disarmament”: to try to see things realistically and clearly, without the confusion of fear or rage. If a problem has a solution, we must work to find it;

May 11, 2020 No Comments

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