[Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

[David Kellogg]

Helena--

Situation in China, courtesy my sister-in-law: life in Beijing is pretty
much back to normal at least on the face of it. People are going out to
their work units (but there is more work from home than before the
crisis). Classes still largely taught from ZOOM. My nephew is in
Shanghai, where the situation is somewhat tighter (proximity to
Wuhan). Wuhan opened up for real yesterday--people can leave (I lived there
for two years in the mid-eighties, but I can barely recognize what I see on
the news now....) I have students in Chengdu (who attend my class via
ZOOM). People are mostly shopping on line with delivery to the gate of the
housing unit rather than to their flat (as we do here in Korea). Air
quality better than it's been in decades.

Situation here in South Korea: We just extended our lockdown for another
two weeks. This is in response to a few days of new infections over a
hundred, but the infections are mostly (80%) Koreans from the US and Europe
who want to live in a place where the medical system has not broken down or
is not in the process of breaking down. There are still some "hotspots" of
community transmission, but these are almost all connected with churches or
PC cafes. Schools reopen on the 16th, but only online. We have elections in
a week, and there is a lot of campaigning going on, including the usual
street based campaigning (the right wing opposition campaigns around the
curious notion that the government has done absolutely nothing, and the
government ignores everybody who is not an actual virus). People shop in
stores, and there is no panic buying or disruption of supply chains. The
main changes in economic life seem to have to do with transport, and it
seems like this too will be permanent (electric scooters are everywhere
now). Bowing instead of shaking hands is really not a bad idea, and
coffee-shops always were over-rated and over-priced....

But what about you, Helena? (One of the things I have learned on this list
is that you get more or less what you give--people tend to use what you
write as a model for writing back!) Are you still in Vietnam? Your address
says Berkeley and your email says Illinois--those are three very different
venues for the virus and the economy. Can you give us a brief account of
the situation in each?

Stay safe, wherever you are!

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical perusal of *Critical
Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: Phenomenal forms and  educational
action research *
in *Mind Culture and Activity*


*https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847>*

Some free e-prints available at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works
Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270



On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 4:30 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:

> Hi Helena,
>
> I share your concerns. And, despite its challenges, this situation seems a
> great opportunity to apply our distributed expertise(s). I tried to get
> some discussion going in a group concerned with the Anthropocene, but
> people seemed disinclined.
>
> Martin
>
> Here’s the first message that I sent…
>
> The current situation is producing important evidence about the probable
> consequences of the strategies proposed to mitigate climate change.
> Satellites are showing significant reductions in pollution:
>
> https://www.space.com/italy-coronavirus-outbreak-response-reduces-emissions-satellite-images.html
> Experts are suggesting that as a result the coronavirus may save more
> lives than it takes:
>
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2020/03/11/coronavirus-lockdown-may-save-more-lives-from-pollution-and-climate-than-from-virus/#4a39bb3c5764
> So when skeptics ask “How can you know that reducing air travel will help
> with climate change?” there is now clear evidence with which to answer them.
>
> Also in China:
>
> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/811019032/why-chinas-air-has-been-cleaner-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak
>
> At the same time, I am starting to wonder whether the current health
> guidelines regarding coronvirus are culturally biased. Can they work in
> ‘collectivist’ cultures (to use the shorthand)? The CDC guidelines, for
> example, include the recommendations to “Stay home when you are sick,” but
> also that other members of the household should “Avoid close contact with
> people who are sick” and should “Choose a room in your home that can be
> used to separate sick household members from those who are healthy.
> Identify a separate bathroom for the sick person to use, if possible.”
> This advice is simply not practicable for many households in Colombia.
> There are not enough rooms; there is no second bathroom. In addition, many
> infants and young children here are cared for by grandparents, or even
> great-grandparents (many women here have a baby when young, so an infant
> may have a grandmother who is in her late 30s and a great-grandmother in
> her late 50s). The evidence shows that children don’t become very ill, but
> they do get infected and they can infect other people, among whom elderly
> caregivers will be the most at risk.
> So I don’t think social distance and auto-quarantine will work in
> Colombia. Consider what the Chinese did: they went door-to-door to identify
> infected family members and removed them to massive collective quarantine
> setttings. People in the West considered this to be draconian, even cruel.
> But it made sense: much more cross-infection occurred in Chinese homes than
> in places like restaurants.
> Unless the authorities can come up with strategies that are more
> appropriate to local circumstances and practices, there is likely to be a
> rapid and elevated peak of infections in Latin American countries.
>
> And I see there is a related point here, on ageism:
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200313155256.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 7, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hello, XMCA-ers -
>
> I don’t remember ever having read that this list was going to shut down or
> even be allowed to fade away. So now I’m writing, as if in the dark, to the
> whole list.  We’ve now got a major — maybe “the” major crisis of the
> anthropocene on our hands and the distant but connected network represented
> by the conversations on this list seem to me to be a treasure more precious
> than gold - and I’m not speaking metaphorically.
>
> I am concerned about some of the people who have been pillars and
> resources on his list, people whom I have reached out to over the years and
> heard back from with information and perspectives that I would never have
> been able to access on my own. Where are you now? What are you doing? Are
> you safe and healthy? Do you have information about friends who are unable
> to read or respond to this request?
>
> I hope to hear some responses to this message.
>
> Take care of yourselves, please —
>
> Helena
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> hworthen@illinois.edu
> 21 San Mateo Road, Berkeley, CA 94707
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20200408/5f8ab4c2/attachment.html