Month: March 2020

…thoughts from home quarantine

By Christy Corp-Minamiji

I had to take a Facebook break for a few days. My rage meter was spiking equally at the “It’s no big deal; I’m going to do all my usual shit” posts and the “PEOPLE ARE IN THE PARK!! HOW DO I REPORT THEM?!?” posts.

We all know this, but weird stuff happens when we are afraid. We dig in deep, often to the positions that most fuel our guilt, shame, and anger.

I get it. I’m a stubborn perfectionist. You ain’t seen digging in until I’m on a rant or feeling betrayed.

But, here’s the thing. Nature (aka a virus, let’s call it SARS CoV-2) really doesn’t care about our thoughts, emotions, or opinions. It doesn’t give a shit about politics or the economy. It doesn’t care about graduations or weddings. It doesn’t really even care about toilet paper. It just wants some cells to attach and replicate. Human cells.

I spent 15 years of my career thinking about diseases in populations — first in vaccine research then in livestock medicine. And the one truth about population medicine is that the comfort of individuals is irrelevant in the face of disease.

We’re well beyond individual needs and comfort now. Ask Italy. Ask Spain where an ice rink has become a morgue.

And yes, that means I’m saying all the things you’ve been hearing about social distance, isolation, flattening the curve, etc.

It also means I’m saying, hold back when you want to lash out, when you want to shame someone for doing it wrong. I get that urge. It’s an individual comfort thing. It’s the desire for control when faced with something over which we have little control.

But, as Brené Brown says, you can’t shame people into changing their behavior. Only solid info and compassion are going to get us to a place of looking beyond our own fears to the health of the population.

Things are going to happen over which you have no control. You’re going to feel guilty, angry, terrified, even hateful.

I get it. I like to think I was ahead of the crowd in social distancing and caution. My kids certainly thought so — yeah, guys, I know I’m a pain. But, here I am, officially on home quarantine with a cough and chest congestion. No fever yet. Could be allergies, could be “just a cold,” could be COVID19. There’s no way right now to know since I am privileged not to be a high risk patient.

When the cough started, I felt deeply ashamed. What had I done wrong? Was I a hypocrite? I’d been going on for days about flattening the curve, and here I am, sick. Finally, yesterday, I remembered.

The virus doesn’t care. No virus cares. The pollens don’t care either. And my lungs have absolutely no opinion on how good a person I am.

So, it’s uncomfortable, even for an introvert, not knowing when I’ll be 72 hours symptom free, not knowing when I get to go for walks again, not knowing how long until my kids can come back. But, my comfort matters way less than the population. So, I’ll sit here and sip my tea, and pour myself a cup of compassion.

Interview with Matt Wieland

By Colin Walsh Photos by Matt Wieland and Iggie Walsh

Q: How long have you been skateboarding?

Matt:  I started skateboarding seriously in 1985. Bought my first board from Pet Cetera in downtown Davis.  Pet Cetera was a pet store that sold bikes and skateboards on the side.  At that time, Davis had several places to buy skateboards and equipment.  There was The Davis Sport Shop, Mountain Sports, Pet Cetera, and Brett For Sports over on Covell.

My first board was a Sims Blaster. Our favorite spot to skate was Whaleback Park because it had a circle embankment. It was our neighborhood skatepark and still kind of is.  The skate location there hasn't been taken of by the city. The wood is falling off the roof overhang and the cement is cracked and uneven.

Every time we ask city workers to move the picnic table that’s been chained in the middle of it they tell us that we have a skatepark we should be skating at.  That's the ignorance of people who just don't know what's up.  Skateboarding is a way of life.  The skateboard itself can be seen as a tool or example of how to progress with other things in life. How do you fight your fear? Do you face it?

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What is UCD doing to support students with COVID-19 ?

By Eileen M. Samitz

On March 27^th, Chancellor May sent out a press release which is important for the Davis community to be aware of in case they have not seen it. The link to the entire article is at:

https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/checking-in-with-chancellor-may-we-are-resilient

The most relevant information in this article by UCD Chancellor May is the following section:

“Before I bring you this week’s updates, I must share that we have learned that a member of our faculty has been confirmed as positive for COVID-19. They were traveling in Europe and developed symptoms March 19 after they returned. They have been at home since returning to the U.S. and have not been on campus since March 5. For privacy reasons, we cannot release personally identifying information, but the faculty member has informed their departmental colleagues of the diagnosis and is currently self-isolating at home.

Earlier this week, in Dateline, we reported that a UC Davis student had tested positive for the coronavirus after returning home from a UC Education Abroad Program in Spain. They had been studying abroad since summer last year apart from a brief visit to campus in early January. The student is currently self-isolating at home.”

Since important and time sensitive details are not included in this press release by the Chancellor, I have sent him the following letter and asked for a response to these relevant questions.

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Meanwhile our Major Arterial Roadways Deteriorate into 3rd-World Condition

by Alan Pryor

The following email was sent to the Davis City Council prior to last Tuesday's Council tele-meeting requesting that SB1 gas tax monies be only spent on main arterial roadway repairs in Davis because budgetary shortfalls will probably eliminate other needed roadway repairs of these critical main roadways and streets in Davis. The email was in response to a posted Consent Calendar item in which Council was asked by Staff to approve sending their proposed "wish-list"of neighborhood streets to be repaired in FY 2020-21 to the state as a pre-condition to receiving $1.3 million in SB1 gas tax monies for such repairs.

The list of streets to be repaired was prepared solely by the City  's Public Works Department and not ever vetted by the Bicycle, Transportation, and Street Safety Commission (BT&SSC) nor by the Finance and Budget Commission (F&BC) nor was there any indication in Staff's Report that these streets selected were in any worse state of disrepair than other neighborhood streets or major arterial roadways in town. It was simply a wish-list put together by Staff and there was no way of knowing if there was any quantitative basis for their selections.

Further, since the list to be sent to the State was not due until May 1, there was ample time for the consideration of the list of selected streets for repair by the appropriate Commissions prior to the submission deadline.

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By Colin Walsh and Roberta Millstein

The Davis Enterprise recently published an “Our View” editorial column arguing that newspapers play an essential role during this COVID-19 emergency.  They encouraged people to write to reporters you appreciate and thank them.  We decided we should take action too.

We agree that the Davis Enterprise plays an essential role in our community now, and for many, years in the past as well (it is our community’s oldest business, founded in 1897).  But it needs our support to continue to do so in the future.  In this article, we make the case for why you should subscribe to the Davis Enterprise  if you are not already. Details are at the end of the article.

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Davis’s first attempt at online democracy has significant, “Kinks”

By Colin Walsh

Last night’s City Council was a hot mess. For the first time the council attempted to hold an interactive online meeting using the Zoom video conference platform, but the meeting was attended by several Zoomers intent on disrupting the meeting. Mayor Brett Lee repeatedly referred to the difficulties faced by the Council and the staff as “kinks,” which may have been more on point than he realized.

Meeting attendees included the profane “Haywood Jablomi,” “aids,” and “Test Test” to name a few of the obvious fake names trolls chose while disrupting the City Council meeting.

The New York Times reported about this rising phenomenon on March 20^th, stating that as Zoom’s “user base rapidly expands, the video conference app Zoom is seeing a rise in trolling and graphic content.” The Times noted that trolls “are jumping into public Zoom calls and using the platform’s screen-sharing feature to project graphic content on unwitting conference participants, forcing hosts to shut down their events.”

In Davis last night, this feature was used to project hard-core pornography on the shared screen in the middle of the council meeting and an annotation feature was used to repeatedly scrawl racist messages, including the n-word, on the shared screen. In one case, an offensive picture of former President Obama was displayed.  There is no doubt that these words and images made many members of the community feel threatened and unwelcome.

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