Feest Isolation Days – 10 November
The day started with sun and a glorious tramp around Ashton Court in Bristol, just over the Suspension Bridge.
The trees are still clinging to their leaves in some cases, a bit like Trump clinging to his Presidency. But the inevitable in both cases will occur; the leaves will fall and Trump will go.
The most splendid news bulletin arrived just before lunch and the excitement is already heating up the stock market all over the globe. Pfizer and BioNTech have tested their vaccine on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised. They are racing ahead with developing huge amounts of vaccine and hope to have 30 million injections available to use before the end of the month. The dose is delivered twice three weeks apart and is said to work for 90 per cent of recipients. The company described the breakthrough as a “great day for science and humanity”. I’ll say!
Between having treatments that actually work, and a vaccine, science will get us off of Zoom and back into contact with each other. There are still eleven other main vaccines that are in late stage trials and hopefully will also prove effective. We eagerly await more news on all of these and give the scientists a huge round of applause. Brilliant people doing a sterling job!
Apparently the numbers of young people wanting to work in health care and make a difference in the work that they will eventually do, has soared. Both medical and nursing school applications have gone up since the pandemic began. It is so heart warming that young people have seen the kind of difference that they might make to their communities and are voting with their feet and preparing to enter the profession. Thank you to all of you and good luck, too!
My pastime when I’m not writing to you all, or writing generally, is often playing word games as I’ve previously mentioned. Sometimes when playing Words with friends, I come up with words I’ve never heard of before as I shift my tiles around on the board and I have to look up the word that the game board accepts and is new to me. Today was a cracker!
Bork. Hmmm? Bork? Danish for something or other perhaps? At least Scandy! It sounds like the words that those noir Scandy detectives use after all. But no. Bork according to my online dictionary, means “to discredit a candidate for some position by savaging his or her career and beliefs.” It seemed a fitting word with all the hoo-ha going on in America at the moment. (hoo-ha by the way is NOT in my online dictionary however, my spell check on word accepts it with a hyphen – I think we all know what that word means…)
Back to Bork. From 1973 to 1977, Robert Bork, served as Solicitor General under President Nixon. He became Acting US Attorney General after his superiors resigned rather than fire Special Prosecutor Cox who was investigating the Watergate tapes and wanted them to be handed over by Nixon. Despite others declining to fire Cox, he followed Nixon’s orders and did the job. When Regan was President, he nominated Bork for the Supreme Court. Bork had a history of advocating for views that Right Wing Conservatives were happy about. He was an Originalist, (getting a bit scary now isn’t it?). Fortunately, the person in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee which was responsible for the hearings to confirm Bork’s placement was one very young Senator, Mr. Joseph Biden. He was an astute man who worked on both sides of the political divide and carefully enabled Bork to be demolished. The Senate did not approve his nomination. Biden was clever enough to let the man speak for and discredit himself. Bork.
There certainly is a great deal of knowledge and experience that will come in handy for the new President Elect. I learned all about this because I just happened to have the letters to spell Bork on my game board. See what a little curiosity will do for you?
Stay curious, it’s a fascinating world.
Thank heavens those Scientists think so too!
Stay safe.
With love
Kathy x