Milano on Corona-time February 2020

Oskar and I came into Milan in mid-February.  We put Oskar with the dog sitter about Feb. 14.  Wally was admitted to Niguarda Feb. 17 with the surgery on Wednesday the 19. 
All went well.
Niguarda is a very large hospital complex.  I stayed at Wally's flat and took the metro/tram ride in the late morning then again in the early evening.
She was kept there until early March.  There was a little talk of the virus but few people wore masks even in the hospital.

Milano on Corona-time Preface

The last months of 2019 were very active for both my wife Wally and me.
Wally had been treated for breast cancer 5 years earlier with radiation which cooked some of the blood vessels near her heart.  She was not receiving sufficient blood to her heart.  An attempt to install a stent failed.  She needed bypass surgery.

I got a call from Salzburg to play an old man in Robert Wilson's production of Mozart's version of Handel's Messiah in January for Mozart Week.  I skipped 2 days of rehearsals in December when Wally had her initial surgery.

In early January 2020 I put Oskar with the dog sitter and went to Salzburg January 6 on a night train.  Then I returned after the last performance of January 31 on February 1 on a train through Innsbruck and Verona.

Wally had researched the best heart surgeons and hospitals in the Milan area.  She found a good surgeon who worked at Niguarda, a large hospital complex on the north side of Milan easily accessible by metro then tram.

Goal revision

At times you need to question whether your goals are realistic.  A short, stocky body type is more suited towards being a wrestler than a basketball player.

My partner Valentina and I both like to write but it has become apparent that the prospects of having our work published are very slim.  Even at a price of zero.

So our conclusion is that you do creative work, whether writing, painting, composing music, or photography, for your own consumption and satisfaction.  It is similar to cooking.

Fortunately, electronic media make these hobbies inexpensive and easy to distribute.  Much easier in fact than giving samples of your cooking to other people.

My next  effort is a short story entitled "The Wild Bunch" inspired by these guys.

 

Plague Test

This is a test meant to stimulate consideration of values.  There are no right or wrong answers, although some choices are probably more desireable than others.

Imagine a situation similar to that in the Bruce Willis film 12 Monkeys.   An airborne plague is distributed all over the world.  It has a germination period of about 30 days and is expected to reach every person in the world within 2 months.  There is a homeopathic antidote available but there is only enough of the active ingredient available to produce a pill that is 99% effective for 10% of the world population.  1% of the population has natural immunity to the plague.  A weak almost-placebo version can be produced for the 90% of the people who cannot be given the full version.  The placebo will have a 1% effectivity so it will save some people.  If someone takes more than one of the full dose tablets it will amount to an overdose and produce the plague rather than prevent it.  The tablets all appear the same to the recipients.  Only the top level of distributors know which are placebo and which are full dose.

Who do you give the placebo and who do you give the full dose?

James Carville, Karl Rove, and American Political Parties

Carville recently made comments on the Obama administrations handling of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  His comments were not directed so much at the actions involved as in the public relations handling.  He said Obama should have gone to the site immediately.  I intended to criticise his view but I realized Karl Rove would have advised similar actions if it were a Republican in the same position..
None of these actions are aimed at handling the problem itself but only influencing public opinion.  If the purpose of political parties is only to take votes to hold office, then it is time for a radical change in the way the government is selected.

Remember Three Mile Island...or the Deepwater Horizon

The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant spelled the end of nuclear power plant construction in the US for at least 40 years.
The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon and its subsequent demise could trigger a similar reaction to offshore drilling in the US.  At the very least it will mean delays in future drilling operations and the introduction of restrictive new rules for such drilling operations.
This will make American petroleum production more expensive and less competitive with imported petroleum products and as we have seen with Walmart and other American retail operations, it is not where the product comes from, but how much it costs in immediate dollars (as opposed to the long term overall price including government supplied insurance and military protection) which determines where the product comes from.
So, expect to see even a greater portion of American petroleum consumption to be supplied by importation with all the potential problems that that entails.

Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs

Having read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis back in the 80's and having learned of the deceit rife in the financial markets, I was surprised at the time when Warren Buffett took the leadership role at Solomon Brothers.  This was partially offset by his actions to correct the bad behavior of the employees there.

Then in 2009 he once again took a large stake in the even less reputable Goldman Sachs (GS).  All this was justified by the enormous returns he, or rather Berkshire Hathaway, was promised by the investment.

However, when the SEC recently filed a fraud suit against GS, the only response from the Buffett camp was a defense of GS.  Legal guilt or innocence has little to do with the reality.  When a person violates the law, they have violated the law, regardless of whether there is a court ruling to that effect.  A person is dead when they are dead, not when the death certificate is issued.

Buffett's action or lack of action damages his reputation.  He now falls into the same class as GS.