Fauci’s feeble-minded fear-filled followers.

Let’s call ‘em 5-F.  That’s one more than 4-F, and we all know what that used to mean: you weren’t going to ‘Nam, but there was something wrong with the designee that rendered him pinch a’ shit unfit for military service, a low bar in those days given the war’s need for cannon fodder.  But these types are everywhere.  I guess if St. Anthony really had a 72% approval rating at the time of the election, such would stand to reason.  Not that reason permeates the behavior of these folks.  The fury of their fire is best exemplified by their magic talisman, the face mask.  Just begrudgingly donning one upon entering a store as required by law is hardly enough.  You can spot one when they trudge from store to car, mask still on, usually to keep the thing on as they drive away in their hermetically sealed vehicle.  That’d be one mean virus that could penetrate such a thing. Mr. Corona ain’t one of ‘em.  Yet you see them driving along everywhere, especially in Priuses laden with bumper stickers. Then there are those out for a stroll in the cold, breezy open air.  Or running!  Or on bicycles!  That’d be a trick worthy of a Navy pilot snagging a trap to nail a carrier landing were Mr. Corona to latch on to a moving object in the open air.  And how about when one of ’em wears a mask into a bar or restaurant, leaves it on even after food and drink arrive then takes it partway off just briefly for each sip or bite, replacing it quickly after? 5-Fs impose this insanity on any they can reach, even their masked up little children, who would turn coronaviruses into mild colds at worst.  But that’s the other way to tell a 5-F.  They’re never shy in pointing out your shortcomings as a human being should they perceive your action, or lack of same, as somehow perpetuating the pandemic.  It could be as subtle as a little finger tap to the side of a masked face, pointing out you should be wearing yours.  It can get physical, with the not always friendly shove to make you get back when you’ve ventured closer than 6 feet.  This can come from complete strangers but even from a person you thought was a best friend.  But nowhere is the 5-F’s fury more evident than when they’re yelling.  I got into an altercation with one today.  I was walking a trail in the woods by the river, coming home from walking Kathy in.  Some chubby middle aged balding dude probably out bird watching (binocs and expensive camera around his neck) coming toward me, stopped, fumbled to put his mask on and held out his hand asking me to stop while he got masked.  Not wanting any part of that nonsense, I just kept walking while telling him I’d not be spewing anything his way so not to worry.  I got way closer than six feet as I walked past.  Boy, did that trigger him!  He pulled out the most powerful weapon on his person – his camera – and clicked away while shouting out things like “don’t ever come back here!” and “you’re not too bright are you?”.  I told him I was a retired professor of medicine. Then he took out on a run to get ahead of me. I hollered “yeah. run!  I think I’m gonna sneeze!”  But he wasn’t running to get away, but to get position for a face on shot of me!  I smiled and waved.  I wonder where those are going to end up?  I think I’m safe as I was wearing my sunglasses.   Ann Arbor, yeah, but I fear such idiocy isn’t confined to tree town.   While I chuckled at the encounter, the dark side in which such types believe so strongly in the righteousness of their views and actions, they long for the power to impose them on you, and some achieve it.  I’m sure my frightened bird-watcher thinks pictures of me can somehow bring me to justice as what he sees as a Covidiot.  I think it goes the other way.  5-Fs are generally miserable people, depressed by the fate that St. Anthony says COVID has befallen them.  I guess we should be pleased that their constant mask wearing means we only have to look at half their faces, their looks mostly improved in the process.  As they’re not given to spontaneously smiling, we’re not deprived from sharing that human pleasure.

But COVID numbers are plummeting all over, certainly in the states I follow like sports scores on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus site: Michigan, Illinois (scoping that Chicago visit), New Mexico (brother-in-law Bob), Colorado (Sam’s widow June), and California (so many).  Whether the drops are a consequence of more stringent PCR testing, use of less sensitive detection methods (like saliva tests), effects of vaccination, redefinition of what constitutes a COVID death, or real declines in infection, they’re drops nonetheless, and what our betters are basing decisions about reopening our economies.  It’s beginning to happen here in my state, and leftist leaders in places like Chicago and New York are also pushing for a return to normalcy.  Should this trend continue, and normal life as we once knew it re-emerges, I worry what will happen to the 5Fs.  So much of their energy and reason for existence is bound up in dealing with the pandemic, what happens next?  I hope they won’t be like the WW II GIs who never could reintegrate into a civilian existence.  Well, the committees on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will need enforcers.  Whatever happens, I have one request to the 5-Fers, delivered by my friend the late John Prine, tragically taken from us by coronavirus last March.  I don’t think a mask would have saved him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy1UOeAMhEs

‘squeat*!

Heard on 4th floor, Chicago House, West Quad circa 1970, every day around 5:30: “d’jeat?” “no d’jew?” “’squeat!”.   And on this momentous day in Michigan “squeat” out! is possible, and I don’t mean “outside dining”!  In honor of this day, which it seems we’ve awaited for an eternity, I’d like to recount the finest meal I had out before the latest lockdown.  It was at a place I wrote about here about a year ago, little Albena, in the back of the Siren Hotel on Broadway in downtown Detroit https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/44. The meal was in late October.

 Their website https://albenadetroit.com/ is so minimalist, it doesn’t even list a phone number.  “Contact” gets their e-mail, a click on “reservations” gets a message that they aren’t currently taking them on Tock.  They were practicing “social distancing” before it was required, never seating more than 4 at their 8 stool bar, keeping dining parties as far from each other as possible.  Of course, if they’re restricted to 25% capacity, that’s one couple at a time.  Even at their prices, it might be tough to keep the lights on with that kind of traffic.  We’ll see what kind of answer my e-mail gets.

As you depart they give you a little tiny scroll.  I thought it was the menu.  I just unrolled mine hoping it would jog my memory.  Alas it is just some inspirational crap.  Now I have a pretty good memory, though not up to Mr. John Prine’s (God rest his soul) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww1SenQwaMg. So here’s what I recollect.

I’m afraid I can’t remember all the courses we wolfed down at Albena that day.  All I can provide are pictures, taken like a good millennial at his/her food.  Our millenial shutterbugs got all 8 courses.  It seemed those 3 behind the bar were always just preparing our next delicacy behind the counter.  Of course, there were also the wine pairings, which I did not capture.  So here goes

Course #1.  Something beany

Course #2.  A little salad sort of thing. Locally grown, of course. Probably picked from out back, grown in the grit of Woodward. I trust they washed it off first.

Course #3.  More colorful tastiness.  Yes, of course we ate the flowers.

Course #4.  I believe those were little fishes.  Scrumptious. Cooked too. The dabs of sauce between were essential.

Course #5.  Lookit that lovely lamb chop, and of course the innocuous sauce next to it.  They did’t mind if you just grabbed the bone and gnawed away.  No bibs necessary.

Course#6.  I totally forgot what this was.  Probably in a swoon after the lamb.  I’m sure it was delicious

Course #7. So you need a dessert to lead you to the dessert?  How about a little yogurt atop raspberries topped with pignoles?

Course #8.  Now they didn’t whip up this behind the counter as we watched.  Probably yesterday.  But a nice slice off nonetheless.

I can’t imagine a more pleasing dining experience than having these kids tend to you.  Save up your $$$ and go if you get a chance.  You’ll have no regrets.

*Translation from Quaddese

d’jeat?: did you eat?

d’jew?:  no, did you?

‘squeat!: let’s go eat!

good for your heart

What good is a new recipe if you can’t tell someone about it?  It was Donna, my red-headed Dixie chick girlfriend from North Carolina who got me cooking and eating black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread for New Year’s (boy, do I feel lucky) that I had to tell about this latest concoction.   So yesterday I wrote her:

“Oh, dear, it’s so sad you can’t stop by 1611 Harbal to eat from time to time.  I just put onto simmer a Dutch oven full of something that could be quite spectacular.  It all started Saturday as Kathy and I decided to clean out and organize our pantries.  I came across a lot of different dried beans in small amounts (1/2 -3/4C), thinking none would make a dish but what if they were mixed all together?  I had more substantial amounts of some other varieties (great northern, garbanzo, soy) that could keep them company.  We then went on our marathon Saturday afternoon foray through Meijer’s, Busch’s, and Plum. Hey, wine was on sale at Meijer’s and Busch’s, and we had to pick up from Plum the subjects for Thursday’s tasting. The “smoked turkey tails” at Meijer’s caught my eye as something that could help out beans.  Last night I threw all those beans in to soak – black, red kidney, black eyed peas, soy, garbanzos, white kidney, great northern – while I devised a recipe.  I took as a template the black-eyed peas recipe we had for New Year’s.  It turned out pretty good.  But I had to embellish it a bit. This one has 2 C onion, 1 C shallots, a whole head of garlic peeled (left whole), a half pound of pearled onions (I love to peel those suckers), peppers (red, Aloha, jalapeno, even a little can of Hatch’s green chilis), celery, and carrots.  Now the wimpy black-eyed peas recipe said to fry up their vegetables in 2 T olive oil.  Now I’ve got way more vegetables, so will need more fat.  And I’ve got way better fat in my fridge.  So my vegetables got fried up in 2T lard and 2T bacon grease.  Probably lost my heart healthy designation right there (you know what they say about beans: “beans, beans, good for your heart…” you can fill in the rest).  The turkey tails were only half enough meat, so I thawed out the rest of my ham hocks.  Variety.  The 4 C of chicken stock seemed to cover everything o.k., leaving unemployed the nice 2 C of bean water I had left over.  Don’t need much spice with a concoction like this, but I threw in 2 bay leaves, a T of ground red chilis, and a T of a weird spice I’ve been experimenting with: red annatto.  And now it cooks.  It’ll sit overnight in the cold garage, and be dinner tomorrow.  Wish you were here.”

So, now it’s the next morning and I haven’t tasted it, but it sure looks good.  Getting the meat off the bones is next.

Here’s the recipe:

legume medley
¼ C white kidneys                                  1 C carrots, chopped                
¾ C red kidneys                         1 C celery, chopped                     
½ C black beans                        2 bell peppers (red, aloha), chopped
½ C garbonzos                                       1 jalapeno, chopped                 
½ C black-eyed peas                              fry vegetables in 2 T lard, 2 T bacon
1 C great northerns                                  grease, in Dutch oven, 6’ till soft
½ C soybeans                                        drain beans, add to vegetables 
cover beans with water, bring to boil  add 1# smoked turkey tails       
turn heat off, cover, let soak 2 hr      add 2 ham hocks (1.25#)
8 oz pearled onions, peeled              add 4 C chicken stock
1 head garlic, peeled, leave whole   2 bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped (2C)               1 T ground red chilis                 
1 C shallots, chopped                         1 T red annatto                      
4 oz can Hatch’s green chilis                 bring to boil, then simmer X 2 hr           

And here’s what it looks like in the pot, after putting back the meat:

Wanna see Donna?

Now there’s a dish! Very good for your heart!

fam

Donna asked that I fill in the blank with my family (ies) so she could keep things straight. Like Paul sang in “She came in through the bathroom window” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVv7IzEVf3M “oh, look out!”


So we need to start with the family I grew up with.  I’ve been unable to unearth the photobooks of mine from those times, so you’ll be spared a bit.  See here Dad and me outside the Cleveland Indians Winter Haven winter facility in March ’02 where we took the short drive from Cocoa Beach to see our Tigers visit.  Yes, he was a short fellow.  Whenever others asked, and he didn’t want to get into the whole adoption thing, he’d just say “vitamins”.  This pic comes from a trip Kathy basically arranged.  Part of her NASA job was to arrange groupings at launches.  This time, she picked her family.  Besides Dad, she invited down one Bo Schembechler, with whom Dad got to bond.  That was March of ’02.  He’d be dead the next March after 9 years of metastatic colon cancer.  His own dad, my dear Dutch grandpa, had his colon cancer cut totally out – no bag – in his late 80s and lived to 104, titillating all the girls in the Holland Home. 

Hard to beat a Spring Training game

Two old fellas killin’ time before the launch


My mom’s side deserves mention. As I said before, I can’t find my old picture books so you’re spare many pictures of little Bobby. Mom’s family.the Slaters, came from farm stock on both sides. Even though Grandpa became a Grand Rapids fireman, he helped his 8 strapping brothers as they provided threshing services to local farmers, fed profusely by the farm wives at the sites they serviced. Here’s the Slater clan sometime in the Great Depression.

Mom’s the perky one at the top. To the side with the bow was Doris. The family decided she was not marriageable, so off to nursing school she went. A bout with TB kept her out of the med-surg nursing she loved, so she became a psych nurse. The little guy is my Uncle Jim, who died last year. He played trumpet in the MSU marching band at the ’54 Rose Bowl, got a PhD from Ohio State, married social worker Joan, and together they had kids in double figures, all but a couple theirs. He spent his career as an upper level bureaucrat at the Department of the Interior and retired to a farm in Kings County, where he was a regular vendor at the local farmer’s market. His apples and peaches were prized.

Here’s Mom when she was young and pretty:

She was everything a mom could be. She died suddenly 5/17/63. I was 10. I was the first to find her as I came home for lunch. No, I’ll never get over it.

After Aunt Dorie put in a decade or so at an insane asylum (Kalamazoo State Hospital) one of her mentors suggested she had something more in her, so she enrolled at Wayne State. Two degrees and a little time later she was head of the department. All along, she was able to spoil me rotten. She’s the most responsible for nudging me into medicine, and probably most proud for what I’ve accomplished. She died day after Halloween ’03, a holiday she loved for all the little kids it brought to her house. My inheritance from her substantial estate funded much of the wonderful refurbishing of the house my wife and I enjoy now.

But what about this other family?  I’d known from earliest times I was adopted, and it didn’t matter.  In dad’s last year, he tossed an envelope of papers onto my bed “here are your adoption papers”.  There in great detail on yellow legal paper were handwritten descriptions of both my adoptive family and my birth family.  I let it sit for quite a while, dabbling on the net seeking some of them.  I think I found Uncle Don but later learned from my mom he was already dead.  Finally, on Memorial Day week ’09, I took the packet to a local private investigator I’d picked out of the phonebook.  Boy, did I get results.  Within 2 days I was on the phone to my birth mom and my birth dad.  Both were affable sorts, and we made plans to meet up.  Mom’s was more dramatic, as my wife Kathy rented a plane and flew to Canadian Lakes airstrip, near Mom’s house. Mom pulled up in a red sports car with the top down, so we both made an entrance.

For Dad it took a train to Toronto, a trip to a Blue Jays game, and of course dinner at one of his favorite restaurants.  I made up a tryptych to see about family resemblances.  I guess I have his nose.  I hope I have her eyes.


Let me introduce you.   First the Speis.  Here are Dad and the kids outside of one of their northern Michigan haunts ~summer ’07. 

My beautiful picture

Of course, I’m not in there.   Going across, there’s Marty, the artist. (https://martinspei.com/). Much of his work is based on figures that look suspiciously like Dad. Elise, the sweetheart, died 2 summers ago of non-smoker’s lung cancer.   Her husband, Dan, is president of the Detroit area Parrotheads, so he’s still fun.  Then comes Cari, who lives in her plain clothes in upstate New York where she and husband Dan founded a very successful natural supplements business, now run by their son Tom in Kidron Ohio (https://natureswarehouse.net/).  Then Suzanne, the eldest girl, who settled in Hudson, near Cedar Point.  She and husband Mike made a killing in Northern Ohio telecommunications.  They’re both avid hunters.  Then there’s Nick.  He came 11 months after me, so Dad wasted no time.  Nick owns and operates his own truck, as does his oldest son Jake.  He’s a hunter and gun aficionado, who says he’d help me get an AK-47 if I wanted.  He had COVID earlier this year and came out clean, no hospital. Last there’s my baby sister Jazz (Jasmine), daughter of Dick’s 3rd (Chinese) wife, Grace. Jazz has a law degree from McGill and works in the entertainment industry.

Then there’s Mom’s side.  See this pic of us in the thumb ~’15 to get our characters straight. 

That’s John, MSU law now a wheeler dealer and Scientenologist,  Di is a CPA working for the state and also volunteer coach of the MSU women’s rowing team (she was an Olympic caliber rower screwed by Carter’s withdrawal from the ’80 Olympics), me (of course), Jolene (a pharmacist, next eldest after me), then Mom and Ian, John’s son, now 6’2″.  He’s an avid Wolverine fan, much to the chagrin of his Spartan dad, an inclination Kathy and I do our best to nurture. Missing is baby sister Amy, who basically lived as a ski bum in CO till her mate of many years dropped dead.  Here’s a pic of all of us last October as we celebrated Mom’s annual escape to Mazatlán Mexico for the winter.

Amy’s moved back, gotten certification as a surveyor at Ferris, and now has her own place in Grand Rapids. In the a pic of all of us celebrating her push off last October – rough babes, eh? – Amy is the one in the middle with the Ireland sweatshirt.


There you have my family, such as it is.  I’m happy to have a couple of those.  More Ike the lucky dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJLIgIv0NM

rational drinking

Since my first taste of beer in view of the White House in March ’69, me an innocent 16 year old junior, I have not met an alcoholic beverage I didn’t like.  This would seem to be incongruent with my supposedly high powered brain, but man I loved those weekend evenings with a car full of buddies and a case in the back.  It got bad enough my assistant principal, Johnny Mac, called me in to ask me why I was going on drunks every weekend.  As was ever my wont, I kept right on doing it, getting straight As so they’d shut up.  I spent quite a bit of time in the back of chemistry class calculating what would be the best deal for our upcoming weekend, based on cost and relative alcohol content.  Was a good mental exercise, sort of like baseball stats.  No wonder my math SATs were through the roof.

I sort of slipped away from this in the ensuing years.  The calculations, not the drinking.  That’s continued.  I can count one DUI, in Maryland, which even included a few hours in jail.  There’s been no AA, though I’ve seen a few “alcohol counselors” at the U who provide cheerful suggestions how to monitor and hopefully reduce my drinking.  I deleted their apps from my phone last year.  The most serious stretch saw me in a program for disciplinary purposes because of opioid prescribing.  Total abstinence was required, enforced by random pee tests. I’d have to call a number each morning to see if it was “my day”.  The pee tests could detect any alcohol within 5 days, so this was serious.   I found a way around it when I travelled, and thoroughly enjoyed my beer and oysters in Half Moon Bay.  Seven months into the program, my coordinator called me to say her committee had judged that alcohol was not one of my problems and I could quit that nonsense (not her words).  Now Kathy says I overcompensated after.  My weight began to climb and who knows how many more alcohol asshole moments I provided.  To this day, I recommend against total abstinence for those who wish to cut back, citing the rebound effect.

I gained a lot of weight utilizing Traverse City Whiskey as self medication for my brachial plexus injury and have managed to shed most of it having apples for lunch.  COVID has brought its own challenges, and alcohol consumption is definitely up at 1611 Harbal.  For a while, we were keeping the caloric consequences in check by daily 4 mile round trip walks to Kathy’s office.  With the campus shutdown, we do almost none of those, and are left to our own designs to getting in what walkies that we can.  Apparently, these are not enough say my 501s.  I have acquired some comfy sweatpants, bit those are way too accommodating.  I’ve observed for years that health care professionals, mainly nurses, who wear scrubs all the time get ever fatter as they have no feedback from their clothes.

I’ve decided to face my enemy head on.  But of course he is also my dear friend.  In the spirit of Mr. Peach’s chemistry class, here is how these libations figure:

drinkserving size% alcoholCalories/servingcost/servingGm alcohol/servingCost/gm alcoholcalories/gm alcohol
beer12 oz/355 mL7.6*228$3.502713¢8.4
Red wine5 oz/150 mL13.5125$420.2520¢6.2
whiskey1.5 oz/45 mL51.7***135$223.279¢5.8
whiskey1.5 oz/45 mL43110$219.3510.5¢5.7
vodka1.5 oz/45 mL40****97$1.20186.6¢5.4

* Founders Harvest Ale; $13.99/4 pack

** based on $20/750 mL bottle

*** based on Traverse City Whiskey, $34/750 mL bottle

**** Ugly Dog $19.99/750 mL bottle

These are all Michigan products, on purpose.  We just observed our 184th birthday yesterday.  You can for sure find cheaper sources for all of these products.  Some results will confirm suspicions you probably already had.  Beer definitely gives you the fatter buzz, with all those extra calories per gram of alcohol.  Distilled spirits are cheaper than their fermented cousins in getting you off.  And the bargain basement is clearly occupied by the Ugly Dog, whose clear spirits get you off cheaper and more leanly than anyone else.  How about that.  As Frank Sinatra said: “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.”

“All you need is love” say our Beatles

Ray

Ray Kamalay and I are about the same age. Except he has talent. He took his ’74 philosophy degree from U of D and did who knows what, but on the side became quite an accomplished singer and jazz guitarist http://www.raykamalay.com/. I met him November before last when he came to perform for one of the freebie Thursday noon concerts at U-hospital in the open area on the first floor. His spare guitar-bass-drums jazz was just what I like, and he threw in some of his own compositions, which had a nice caustic edge, just like an old philosophy major might do. Jump to January, when he played at a library, in West Bloomfield. Nobody shushed, and the same wonderful stuff flowed forth. I took Kathy, and she was taken also. ‘Twas to be the last concert we would see in Michigan in 2020. I never paid a dime for any of his concerts, but I did mail him checks for some of his CDs.

Not to let his creative juices be stinted by the COVID lockdown, he instead turned himself to writing about it. Here’s the tune he produced, with a message for us all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFz5XbQWK-o

I sent this to my high school English teacher Mrs.Pharriss, who is keeping an e-scrapbook of things COVID. She loved the song and of course parked it in her scrapbook

I wrote him recently to thank him for telling me about a cassette of Michigan songs he had produced for the sequecentennial (1987), “Michigan in Song” https://www.discogs.com/Various-Michigan-In-Song-Traditional-And-Contemporary-Songs-Of-Michigan/release/11567551, available from the Michigan State museum shop 517-355-2370 https://www.museum.msu.edu/museum-store/. Although Ray produced it, it is decidedly folky rather than jazzy, and Ray appears on just one track. I asked him how his “hit” was doing, and he thought it probably wasn’t, citing one YouTuber’s comment “I hate this”, not sure if that meant the song or the situation. I offered he just needed to bring it to the attention of the right people, giving him Fauci’s e-mails: faucia@od.nih.gov, faucia@mail.nih.gov. Since his song promotes responsible behaviour, surely it should get wider play. Spread the word.

how about that Plaquenil?

That much maligned cinchona bark extract derivative got a little boost recently. On January 14, a group out of Hackensack (New Jersey) Meridian Health Network published their findings on the effect of Plaquenil on keeping COVID-infected patients out of the hospital*. They looked at all the patients diagnosed with COVID in their ERs or clinics from March 1st to April 22nd, then saw what happened to them through May 22nd. Since they were looking back, and treatment decisions were up to individual doctors, this was a retrospective uncontrolled study, pretty weak in the eyes of science types. Still, what they found was pretty interesting.

Among 1274 outpatients with documented COVID infection 7.6% were prescribed hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil). In a 1067 patient propensity matched cohort, 21.6% with outpatient exposure to Plaquenil were hospitalized, and 31.4% without exposure were hospitalized. Propensity score matching is a quasi-experimental method in which the researcher uses statistical techniques to construct an artificial control group by matching each treated patient with a non-treated patient having similar characteristics. Using these matches, the researcher can estimate the impact of an intervention. So using these stats, they showed that the reduced rate of hospitalization for the patients who received Plaquenil was statistically significant. It looks even better graphically

Looks like something you might wanna take if your COVID test comes back positive, eh? The stuff is very safe, especially in short term, and quite cheap. I used to prescribe it by the buckets full to patients with mild rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and those treatment courses were long term. Except for having to see an eye doctor annually (Plaquenil can build up in the retina long term), patients didn’t run into trouble as long as we minded the dose, adjusting for body weight. Controlled studies have shown Plaquenil doesn’t have much of an effect on COVID patients who are already quite sick and in the hospital, or in protecting health care workers at high risk of exposure from getting it themselves. President Trump was taking Plaquenil when he came down with COVID, but he had a pretty mild course, and maybe that was the Plaquenil in part (although most who catch COVID have a pretty mild course).

None of our betters seemed to like Plaquenil very much, although that opposition is being quietly rolled back, like the AMA’s cave last month https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/899. Who knows how many could have been saved from the hospital or maybe even from death had more liberal use of Plaquenil been the thing from the get go? Well, COVID is still with us and the vaccines aren’t going to do everything. If you’re unfortunate enough to test positive, do what they tell you to do on the TV adds: “ask your doctor”.

Here’s the reference. If you click on the link, you can see the paper itself, maybe print it out to have in your back pocket when you go to your doctor’s office.

*Ip, A., Ahn, J., Zhou, Y. et al. Hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of outpatients with mildly symptomatic COVID-19: a multi-center observational study. BMC Infect Dis 21, 72 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-05773-w

those vaccines I

I’ve been meaning for some time now to dive deep into the COVID vaccine literature and produce something intelligible for this blog. The process would help me understand as well. I’ve done a little, but have quite a ways to go before I. can say I understand the whole picture. But today, I answered a question from an old friend which made me realize I have learned something worth sharing already.

Wang (a.k.a.Ken Rambow) was the ace rocker of our class now builds beautiful custom guitars, He wrote me this morning with the following:

Hey Bob. I would like to seek your opinion on something. Some people are concerned about the vaccine because as it involves the RNA. Should I be concerned? Not sure you profess to be an expert on this but I bet you know more than than some, including me!

To which I responded:

Hey Wang

I may not be as much the expert on viruses as you are with guitars (can’t build one from scratch), but I’ll bet we’re on the same relative tier.  After undergrad at U of M while I was waiting to see if I’d get into med school, I went to grad school in microbiology for a year and got a masters.  Beside the classwork which included a couple courses focusing on viruses, I did research in 2 labs looking at different viruses, which were hot then as it was thought they might cause cancer and degenerative brain diseases.  I spent time in 2 more virology labs, one in med school and another as a rheumatology fellow.  I sucked at bench research, so I never published anything, but did learn the big words along the way, which has served me well over the past year.  I met Kathy as a collaborator on a project a Michigan, so it wasn’t all for naught. 

The vaccines are very interesting, and I keep meaning to dive into the topic completely and produce something for my blog, but that will have to wait, as some other people are expecting me to help them finish up a manuscript over the next 2 weeks.  But these vaccines are not the ones we knew as kids and young adults, when they either ground up the critter they wanted to protect you from and injected it or else somehow disabled the bugger and injected into you live but it didn’t make you sick.

The molecular biologists devised these RNA vaccines several years ago and have been dying for a chance to use them on a large scale.  Coronavirus is an RNA virus.  Your genes are DNA, which must be transcribed into RNA to be translated on ribosomes to make proteins.  The virus skips that first step, injects RNA into your cells and goes to town using your own ribosomes.   There is one component of Mr. corona that is critical to its ability to wreak havoc: the spike protein.  You’ve seen many pictures of it.  This protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on lung cells, enters those cells, and goes to town.  Just injecting you with spike protein won’t protect you from corona, as it elicits mainly antibodies, which the spike protein can co-opt by pretending to be a resting place for those antibodies, but that’s another story.  The lab jocks, with all their tools to manipulate DNA and RNA, have replicated the portion of the RNA gene of the coronavirus that makes spike protein.  They’ve encapsulated it in little packets (nanoparticles) made of polyethylene glycol (ethylene glycol = antifreeze), which is what gets injected.  The stuff is very unstable, hence all the dry ice.  Once injected, it finds some friendly cells, latches onto their ribosomes, and starts cranking out spike protein.  Since this is recognized as foreign by your immune system, all arms of the immune system respond (not just the antibody producing cells).   The RNA eventually gets degraded (they say), so the spike protein production peters out.  The second shot gooses it up again.  So, it’s very effective.  Pfizer will make a killing (did you know they were making it in the old Upjohn plant on Portage?).  My worry is what happens from mucking with this basic stuff of life?  I guess I’ve seen Jurassic Park too many times.  All human cells contain a little bit of reverse transcriptase, which takes RNA and makes DNA, which can then, potentially, integrate into your own genes.  Vaccines coming down the pike employ different mechanisms, including one which takes an adenovirus bearing the spike protein onto its own DNA chromosome, which infects your cells, where I think the spike protein gene actually does integrate into your own genes so it can crank out spike protein.  Need to read more about that.

Bottom line is these things are wonderful and scary at the same time, barring Bill Gates’ bots and the luciferase.  If you’re in a situation where you’re going to be encountering a lot of people that might be infected with COVID, like a hospital ER, maybe it’s worth getting.  Kathy and I intend to stay as far away from them as possible, unless having had it becomes some sort of requirement to travel.   Remember how Prof. Carlin taught you there are more ways to protect yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo

Stay well

Bob

50 years

Since last July, when the planned 50th reunion celebration for the Vicksburg High School class of 1970 got nixed because COVID, I’ve been setting up Zoom meetings for those classmates of mine with an e-mail address. Initially, I found only 60 or so of those out of our class of 169, but we’d had several meet ups where a small fraction of those showed up and had a pretty good time. Once you get over the shock of who all those old people might be, as you get to talking the bonds reform. Today I was working to set one up for next week, as it had been since well before Christmas that we’ve Zoomed. I’ve found over the last couple months that many of the folks without a single email address actually have many, at least on my InstantCheckmate search. Firing off an email to a batch can return the one that works and off you go. One connection I made was with Jo Ann Martens Cousins in Jupiter Florida, one of the brighter and livelier members of our class. I was happy when she responded and she’ll surely light up the Zoom screen. She asked me for contact information on a couple class members, which I supplied, then asked the following. I’d already sent her a current picture of me so she wouldn’t be too shocked when she logged on for the Zoom. She asked:

So what have you been doing these last 50 years…catch me up … would love to get  caught up… where are you…family…job  or retired?? 

I answered:

About Jr yr @ U of M figured I had to do something productive, had always done well in science, so aimed for med school.  got the folks off my back.  had a year to kill before possible med school, so got a masters in microbiology.  did research in virology and dabbled in it again in med school and post-doc.  Knowing that lingo has served me well this past year.  Only school I got into was University of Chicago, a good one.  Hard slog, but matched to another good place (Barnes Hospital, St.Louis) for internal medicine.  Came back to AA – the only program that would have me – for Rheumatology.  An endless game of clue as my wife observed.  Met her as a collaborator on a virology project.   Married 10/4/86 (remember Maxwell Smart?).  No kids despite trying.  Still living in the first house I bought in ’85, now at last paid for.  Hired on to faculty after my post-doc, got tenured ’94 so I got to stay.  Kathy finally got PhD 4 years after we married, did a couple post-docs, hired on to the U as a research scientist.  Adapted some of her research to effects of spaceflight.  NASA noticed and hired her as one of their senior scientists ’88, responsible for the space station first 2 years then human space flight next 2.  Worked and lived in DC.  Not fun for me except when I went to visit.  She applied to astronaut corps and made first cut but stopped there.  Dad came to AA regularly for football games (Kathy brought great 50 yard line season tickets that had been in her family since ’64) and we had great times.  He died March ’03 after 9 years with metastatic colon cancer.  My Aunt Dorie, sister of my mom who died when I was 10, died later that year.  In ’09, I successfully looked up my birth parents and went from being an orphaned only child to one with 2 living parents and 10 half-brothers and sisters (3/7).  Birth father, who played football at MSU for Biggie Munn, died ’15 and one of his daughters passed from non-smokers’ lung cancer 2 years ago.  Fortunately, we all get along and no one has asked me for money.

I never made “fool” professor, retiring as associate professor 6/30/19.  Retirement is great.  So many things you don’t or can’t do while working, or maybe never even thought of.   There’s not enough time in the day to do all the things I’d like to do now.  Now I know why old people get up so early.  Kathy has taught scientific writing in her old school (Kinesiology) for the last 11 years and counting.  She loves it, but didn’t like having to go virtual, even though it kept her at home in the living room with me.  She says she’s hanging it up after this term, but I have my doubts.  She loves those kids too much.  This term she’s back to getting to teach mostly in person.  And someone bringing in a paycheck is nice.  We already travel a lot, even in the face of COVID.  Eric Durham’s still my best friend, but his grandkids get most of his attention.  I’ve been keeping in touch with some of the old VHS gang for quite a while.  Best friends I ever had.  About a year ago, I took on a project that has me going to the ‘burg periodically for more than just frivolous reasons.  Early into it, I got to interacting with Sue Moore, Meredith Clark’s daughter, who got so interested in what I was doing wrote me up for her South County News, successor to the Commercial.  I’ve attached her story.  Sadly, she died a month later.

Well, that’s probably enough news from Lake Wobegon for now.  If you want more of my words, you can check out my blog http://www.theviewfromharbal.com.  I’ve loaded a bunch of pictures onto my classmates.com page https://www.classmates.com/siteui/people/robert-ike/5513161.

Thanks for asking.

See you next week

Bob

Aunt Dorie

How sad and hard it is to write about someone who’s been so important to you.  I’ll have to say Aunt Dorie began for me as the baby daughter of Bill and Vera, my mom Marion the star to rise and snatch Dick, who would be my dad. 

Doris, as the less marriageable, was off to Mercy College nursing school.  She excelled, if not to honors. Shortly into her rotations at St. Mary’s, she was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, mandating a stay at the sanitarium till ’51.  Once out, she took a post in the Kalamazoo State (Psychiatric) Hospital, where she would toil till an old friend of hers recommended she enroll in Wayne State to acquire a proper degree, which she did, parlaying it into a faculty position she’d occupy, including chair of her department, until she finally retired . During these times she managed to find ways to spoil me rotten.   While I lived in Birmingham ’61-’63. A trip down to her Royal Oak home was pretty easy, but when I returned my dad said “it took two weeks to wring it all out of her.”  She sent me regular packages of cookies and cashews while in medical school, plus checks.  All she wanted were some updates on my progress, which I sent her, sporadically.  Ecstatic I’d be back in Ann Arbor, we got together pretty regular.  It helped I was chasing Nancy of Farmington Hills, whom they all liked.  As my affections turned to this Kathy chick, our mutual affections faded.   Of course there have been a few back and forth meetings, but we’ve approached these meeting more as an obligation.  Alas, she’s gone now, dying on Halloween night October ’03.  She always enjoyed Halloween, with all the kids.  The neighborhood kids released balloons in her honor afterwards.  So that I might commit something to her honor.  Let this post be it