Today is January 5th, 2022. I checked the count of Covid infections this morning. Yesterday we had 885,541 confirmed infections. To provide some context, on January 11th last year was the previous high which reached 229,927. There have been studies conducted last year that conclude that actual infections may be 6 times as high as confirmed infections. If that’s true, and I assume it is directionally correct, right now the real infection number is between 3 and 5 million a day. Glad this variant is milder than Delta. Today is National Screenwriters Day, National Bird Day, National Whipped Cream Day and National Keto Day. Now let’s take a down history lane: On this day in 1527 the Anabaptist preacher Felix Manz was executed by drowning in Zurich. Felix had gotten into an argument about baptism with the Catholic Church and they decided the fitting punishment was death by baptism. In 1709 The Great Frost, a sudden cold front hit Europe. Thousands died across the continent and crops fail in France. On this day in 1804 the Ohio legislature passed the “Black Laws” which restricted the movement and employment of free blacks. In 1914 on this day the wages paid by Ford Motor Co jumped from $2.40/9-hr day to $5.00/8-hr day. Now the people who worked at Ford could afford to buy what they built. This is Umberto Eco’s birthday. He was an Italian medievalist (?), novelist, cultural critic and philosopher. Umberto said, “For an enemy to be recognized and feared, he has to be in your home or on your doorstep.” He and I seem to agree that real change is only possible in times of widespread crisis. Umberto died in 2016. I’ll end with his advice about the media and particularly the internet: “Not long ago if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.” Abide.
