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For those of you keeping track, you were expecting this week’s post to discuss the most popular baby names of 2019. I know I certainly was.

But, alas, that is yet another effect of the coronavirus – no more baby name lists until further notice. Don’t blame me – that was the decision of the Social Security Administration.

Here is their reason for not fulfilling their annual tradition: “Out of respect and honor for all people and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the announcement of the 2019 most popular baby names is being rescheduled to a to-be-determined date. ”

Now there are several reasons that would have made sense to me – reduced staff, higher priorities at this time, etc. – but “out of respect and honor”? That does not make sense to me. How are people honored by not being able to see what names are popular? Maybe some medical workers are pregnant and want to check their possible names against the list – how are they respected by withholding the list?

I just don’t get it. Why that reason? Did they not want to tell us the real reason they don’t have the list?

Anyway, my annual post of the real most popular baby names is postponed until the SSA agrees to release their list.

I know people have already done all the coronavirus comparisons to Disney’s Tangled, but I think our governor is filling her role too well. She compares quite easily to Mother Gothel.

And for those of you who aren’t familiar with Tangled, how about Stockholm syndrome? Think about it – a captor (Whitmer) keeps innocent people captive (Michiganders who aren’t sick) and tells them it’s for their own good and they believe her.

We are supposed to help this COVID-19 die down so we don’t get a second wave? That’s vague enough that it is always true. A second wave inevitable no matter how long you postpone, so give us information about how we’ll know it’s safe enough. Something more concrete than “trust me”.

Similarly, how flat a curve is flat enough? The growth rate has tapered off, the daily new cases have been on the decline for some time now. We were supposed to stay home to flatten the curve. Without a clear definition of when the curve is flat enough, I say it is. If you disagree, please let me know why Michigan hospitals are closing and laying off their workers.

Finally, why not let people work, who can work by themselves? Like lawn services, surveyors, some contractors, etc. “But science says social distancing works…” Sure, and if the point is to prevent person-to-person interaction, why did the governor ban surveyors from working? They walk in fields and forests alone, taking measurements. The same could be said about the guy who mows our neighbor’s lawn by himself, or at least he would if he could.

Anyway, here are some images that illustrate our dear leader’s decisions.

I suppose I could have gone on with America in July and America in August, but the image was getting a little too long, plus I don’t want to predict exactly when we’ll be out of trouble. I thought that sequence from The Empire Strikes Back was a good fit for how things will go, but if you remember that part of the movie, Han Solo just moved into another bit of trouble and it wasn’t good for him just yet.

I thought about trying to caption who Jabba and cronies are in the world of 2020 – something like “countries who didn’t cripple their own economies” but it’s a little early for that. But I’m guessing there will be some countries in decent shape by the time America gets up and starts stumbling around – maybe they handled things better or maybe they were hit earlier so they recovered earlier.

For brevity’s sake, I should have stopped after the second image. Use that as the TL;DR version.

Another day, another announcement from the governor about what else is being shut down. The problem is that we disagree on what is “good behavior”. Not a big disagreement yet, but a number of small divergences add up eventually. New rule! New rule!

Some thoughts on the novel coronavirus AKA COVID-19.

• What happened to versions 1 through 18 of COVID? Is this like WD-40 where the first 39 versions didn’t work?
• Why is everyone stockpiling toilet paper for a respiratory disease? I’ll try to stay ahead of the game for the next disease outbreak, and if it has gastrointestinal symptoms then I’m going to stockpile Kleenex and Puffs Plus.
• I saw a news story on how restaurants are being affected because people with whatever symptoms were not being allowed to work. That should have been the case already. It seems that COVID-19 is making people behave (regarding personal health at least) the way they should have been anyway. I don’t want someone with a fever handling my food whether it’s coronavirus or the plain old flu.
• Restricting travel to control the spread of coronavirus is like inching your way into a cold pool. You know you’re eventually going to get wet, and all you’re doing is prolonging the inevitable. Ok, bad analogy – stop going into the pool instead.
• All the explanations about how much travel affects one’s carbon footprint were not really being heeded. A couple months of coronavirus has impacted people’s travel plans a lot more than years’ worth of global-warming policies and recommendations.
• I got a COVID-19 email from my bank. I thought the privacy notices were a waste, but if every company I do business with is going to send me not only privacy policies but also personal hygiene tips to avoid viruses, that will be an even bigger waste.
• Dear Politician, if you are going to enact a ban on public gatherings, you must also provide an exit strategy for the ban. Otherwise, I must conclude you are just making a power grab and taking advantage of fear and uncertainty. By “exit strategy” I mean how will we know when things are good again? You can’t ban public gathering and sporting events forever. So what is the indication? When you say so? I want an objective measurement instead.

My opinion, in case you’re wondering, is that our current reaction to the coronavirus is not sustainable. Business and travel must get back to normal eventually (although this has furthered my resolve never to go on a large cruise ship). The virus will spread and won’t be contained, and it will end up either being something everyone has to live with (like the existing cold and flu season) or enough people will get immunity and it will taper off.

My worry is that if this is how the country reacts to an easily-preventable and relatively mild disease, how bad is going to be if there’s something really bad? I can’t imagine the social and political disorder that something with worse symptoms or a higher mortality rate would bring.

And yes, I know the 19 from COVID-19 refers to the year 2019.

Also, I was going to make a image that showed 19 different crows and jays and ravens with the caption of Corvid-19, but several people have already done that so I skipped it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no one really likes to go to the SOS (or the DMV for those of you who are not Michiganders – it’s the Secretary of State). And for many years that was true.

Then in our previous administration we got someone in charge of the SOS who actually made an improvement. She brought the SOS up to modern times by allowing people to get in line via their phones, and to get updates via phones.

No more waiting at the government building! Check in online, and you only needed to head over to the SOS when they sent you a text. I could spend those 3 hours in line at work doing something rather than sitting in a hard plastic chair doing nothing. It was the best thing the SOS office had done in my lifetime.

But what about the internet? Surely being able to renew things online was a much larger accomplishment? Nope, and here’s why: they let you do things online that you could already do by mail. So it’s just a faster way of doing things remotely, but those things were already available to do remotely. The internet didn’t really change the things for which you had to go to the branch office. The online check-in changes the branch office experience.

They’re trying to help by adding more self-serve kiosks in more places like local stores. But those kiosks also don’t do things that you can’t already do online or by mail. Having SOS kiosks in every store across Michigan won’t put a dent in the wait times at the SOS office.

What they need to do, in addition to being able to use one’s cell number to wait in line of course, is to expand the things that can be done online. Every so many years, your license plate becomes invalid and you need to go in to get a new plate, instead of renewing online. Why? No one knows. And there must be other things that can be added to the online services.

What happened to the MI-Timeline? Why can’t I check in online anymore for the SOS? Why does it take so long to get an appointment? Good questions, and I can’t answer them. But you can help change the answer by going to the change.org petition to bring back the check in line online option.

Since today is New Year’s Day, I won’t take much of my time to write anything lengthy here.

I am posting this public service reminder that new decades start with years ending in 1, so the 203rd decade starts next year. 2020 is the last year of the 202nd decade.

But most people don’t want to think too much about what things should be and just go along with the crowds, because they also misunderstand the meaning of the phrase “wisdom of crowds”. But I already posted about that earlier, so you can go read about the wisdom of crowds if you want.

So most people just think that when the tens place changes in the year it must be a new decade. And if most people think that, then that becomes the new definition of the decade, just like if enough people use a word to mean something that it doesn’t mean, it magically gains that meaning and becomes correct, like “momentarily”. I think I’m done fighting the decade thing though. And “momentarily”. Not that I won’t bring it up occasionally, and especially if asked – but I’ll try not to make a big deal of it.

And while we’re dealing with word definitions, “ain’t” is the right word to use in certain places. It’s correct following “I” but not “it” or “they”. People just hear it used and try to use it without thinking about it or knowing what it means or how it got here. And no, I’m not telling you.