Quarantine Diary #47 and #48 4/29 and 4/30/2020

Well that was unexpected. Last night I posted the 4/29 diary and then we ate dinner. At 6:30 two of you emailed to me that this site was not working.  Len talked to several experts last night and again this morning and it finally came back online early this afternoon.  According to GoDaddy, my site is bunched with other sites and one of them was being bombarded by malware so GoDaddy put extra security on this bunch of websites.  I didn't get hacked - but we couldn't get here, either!  

Apparentaly this IS related to the quarantine.  More people have more time on their hands. There is always money to be stolen in cheating and graft.  There is an ongoing malicious cyber shenanagans.

So when our leaders tell us they don't know what our future will hold - can we start by making a list of the jobs we will need?  Such as MANY more cyber-savvy cops as well as computer programs that can detect and shut down crap.

There are so many jobs that will need to be done.  This time, instead of letting the old guard decide who can do what, let's get out in front and talk about what we need and how people can be educated towards those needs and jobs.

What jobs do you think we will need more of?

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The rest of this is yesterday's post: 

Tomorrow (4/30) is our Zoom Meet n’ Greet event with Democratic Congressional Candidate Tom Palzewicz.  If we know you and you live in Wisconsin’s District 5, we have sent you two emails and maybe we’ll send out a reminder tomorrow, not sure.

This meeting has a built-in password and waiting room. All that means is that if you want to attend, we need to send you the URL that you will need to click to get to us. (It’s in the emails we sent.)

Maybe if you don’t live in District 5 you assume you don’t need to pay attention to Palzewicz. Or to the campaigns of other progressive candidates across the nation. Yet consider how grateful you are to the representatives not from your district who work towards your values. A good elected representative represents us all. A poor one makes all our lives more complicated and our society more unjust. 

I pay attention to some campaigns in other places. I send modest donations which is the handy-dandy way to get on their mailing lists and to continue to hear what they are doing.

This November’s election is critical. It will help all of us if Tom Palzewicz from SE Wisconsin goes to congress.  Instead of Scott Fitzgerald (currently Senate majority leader in Madison), who along with Robin Vos co-authored the last-minute manipulation that required in-person voting in the middle of the pandemic. Do you want that guy to have more power?

Please check out Palzewicz’ website https://www.tomforwi.com/

If you want to ask him a question and/or hear his answers, email MB@MaryBethDanielson.com and we will send you the zoom link you will need.    

Thanks.

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Speaking of guys who get shit done.

Jeduthan Baldwin (1732-1788) was a Massachusetts man. Clever and smart, never rich nor mighty.

In winter and early spring of 1777, Colonel Baldwin, at 45 years old, had been inventing and building infrastructure for military defense half his life. He had fought with the British at Crown Point, NY in 1755 to help liberate that fort from the French. His leg was so gravely wounded that army surgeons were going to amputate - but Baldwin fought them off with a bayonet! He insisted he was leaving this world in the same shape he arrived.

Like many citizens of the colonies in the years after Great Britain won the French Indian war, Baldwin slowly lost his belief in and sense of loyalty to the British king and government. John Adams would later say the Revolutionary War was won in the 15 years BEFORE a shot was fired as people’s opinions about the role and powers of government changed. 

So anyhow, Fort Ticonderoga looked impressive from a distance but it was poorly located and in terrible condition. Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin (he signed his name Jedu) was the guy who was designated to fix it before the British sailed down Lake Champlain from Canada. 

In the first few months of work, Baldwin (and the men who worked under him) designed, built, and repaired ships and sawmills, batteries, redoubts (fortifications of packed dirt or rocks outside a fort, but for the protections of soldiers from that fort.) He built two guardhouses, a boom of logs across the lake to slow down the British. And more. Lots more. Including plotting and clearing dense forest into a 25-acre vegetable garden to grow food for thousands of people.

Everyone was impressed by the methodical, prodigious, unflagging infrastructure projects solved and pushed forward by Baldwin. People liked him. They said he never seemed flustered or impatient - though he never sat down, either. 

This particular project impressed me. He knew a bridge was needed from the fort across the lake to Mt Defiance; a higher mountain from which to defend the area. How can one build a bridge across a rapids-filled river in the middle of winter?

Bridges are built on caissons. Caissons are big piles of rocks or some other massive underwater infrastructure into which posts can be securely installed. The bridge will hang from those posts so the caissons have to be built first and built right.

Baldwin and his workers build timber boxes 24-feet square and 30-feet tall. Each box was dragged/built on the ice in the exact places Baldwin wanted the caissons to be. The workers filled the boxes with rocks. Then - can you imagine how dangerous this was? - they cut the ice to allow the huge boxes to drop into the correct places from which to build the rest of the bridge. 

All of this was done by men chopping and milling the trees and then dragging them to the ice, since there were no draft animals. There hadn’t been enough time or money to bring animals plus all the feed they would need in upper New York state in the winter.

There’s plenty more to know.  One can even read Colonel Baldwin’s diary on line at; https://archive.org/stream/revolutionaryjo00baldgoog#page/n8/mode/2up

Right now, I’m about done with sentimental talk about patriotism. I don’t need to be reminded when to feel what about my country.  Show me people who are solving hard problems and I will respond with gratitude and respect for complicated work well done. 

Turn off the talking heads. Show us where we can join valuable efforts with what we know how to do.

I’m (still) reading “Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War” by Richard Ketchum. It’s 500 pages long. Tales to come.

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It rained so much today that the leaves on the trees outside the window are bigger this evening that they were this morning. It’s lava lamp season, hues and colors change before our eyes. Dark clouds scud across the sky in waves. I hear wind whistling through the stalwart sentinel trees in my urban neighborhood.

Take care of yourselves tonight.