Using this $10 toy now might save your life WHEN coronavirus hits you

And yes, you should expect the virus to hit you. Maybe I will explain why below, but that’s the bottom line. But most of the people who die are people who die because of weak lungs. Above all, people like me over 70 need to remember that their lungs (like other parts of their body) tend to grow weaker than they used to be, UNLESS they are exercised regularly.

No, I don’t sell this little device, called an incentive spirometer. I learned about it in the hospital a few years ago, when I had a (successful) operation for cancer, and they told me to use it five times a day, breathing in ten times each time. They said it prevents colds, and they didn’t want more colds in the hospital. I decided I didn’t want extra colds at home either, so I did some web searches from pubmed to the market. I was really delighted to learn that this is also very useful as a BREATHING exercise, better than what world class yoga can do on its own; after all, why not be ultra mindful when breathing in and focusing on pushing up the numbers? In short, I am a satisfied customer, and can’t help hoping that something like this might save Pope Francis right now if it’s not too early and not too late for him.

Satisfied customer – hospitals have tons of these, thrown away all the time, costing them maybe $100 each and costing $10 to make. (What did Sanders say?) But I bought this on Amazon, being sure it reads as high as 4000 cc (what you need if you are not near death even before the virus hits you), is cheap enough, and has the little faces on the right to let you do this right. I did get up to 4000 before when I used it regularly for awhile, but after I stopped, a few years later, I am back down to 2500. I will pump it up again every day, maybe once or three times, until the world is free of coronavirus.

As to why – I started watching CNN and CNN International a lot, in addition to France24, when they impeached Trump, and reported details on the Coronavirus. Years ago, I remember when Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN recommended using the “Happy Birthday” song to time exactly 15 seconds when washing my hands, twice, to meet hospital standards. After Luda told me to grind out coffee for 45 seconds, I sing “Happy Birthday, Dr. Gupta” to myself when I grind the copy, the Dr. Patel (who sold us this house), then Gupta again. They and France24 have gotten pretty deep into what is happening with this coming pandemic. The medical experts have lots of OTHER important advice. (For example, I put my wallet in a drawer a few feet away from the sink, and remember to do that handwashing whenever I put back my wallet.) By avoiding dangerous places, I might postpone getting this until it evolves to lower lethality or I get a vaccination, but that’s not so clear as yet.

I still remember the day (another blog post) when trump really wanted to fulfill a weird kind of duty so many devotees of the Great Ostrich in the sky believe in: hold events to calm the public down as much as possible, regardless of what real objective truth might call for, and feed them words like strong opiates. It reminds me of a VERY truthful Republican staffer I worked with who quoted Upton Sinclair, “There is nothing so simple and obvious that people won’t fail to see and understand it when they are paid to be blind.” Maybe he expected that at first, but docs told him that old guys in Congress care about staying alive and actually check into reality when THEIR lives are on the line here and now. That’s why they compromised, and let us publics get access to real information (if we open our eyes). It’s a huge mass of information by now).

I do wonder whether this experience is reminding Trump yet of the first curse of Moses. But news from South Korea reminds me of a sci fi I am reading now, The Name of the Wind, where I don’t yet know what happened to a certain deserving wagon train which deserved better. Strange world we live in. When Bernie calls for a revolution, I think of an ancient black and white TV in my sister’s room in 1963, where “revolution” menat turning the dial to change the channel. Could we please change the channel from Wizard of Oz to Wonder Woman 2? (At least to the trailer, which really raised a real positive chill up my spine, a lot like a kundalini experience.)

By the way, the photo is a view of our kitchen and of this very text, from kneeling where I usually sit in a boardroom chair inherited from my father.

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Ops, that pesky old "Voice of Loki" responded after that post. It told what I think of as a typical Russian style joke: "Why will Trump's messages of reassurance actually improve public health in the US? Answer: by natural selection, reducing the ostrich population." No, not so. Mainly it will kill OLDER ostriches, beyond the age of normal reproduction. Still, there might be some benefit in putting some of the uncontrolled old guys out of operation.