Thoughts of Indeterminate Depth

Cast of Friends
I've never watched this show. Doesn't mean I'm not aware of it.

When I am making a phone call, why does my phone go black at exactly the same time that it stops ringing and the annoying voice mail message comes on? Now I have to push the wake up button before I can hang up the phone. I am not going to leave a voice mail message because text messages work so much better for that. Voice mail was a big improvement over having to actually go see someone to find out why they aren't answering their phone, but it's still cumbersome and annoying.

Rumor has it that minorities and immigrants seem to be more susceptible to COVID-19, witness the outbreaks among the Somali refugees working in the meat packing plants in the Midwest. It might be that recent immigrants are more social than us white supremacists. Some people do not need or want a great deal of social contact. As long as they have all their material needs satisfied, there is no reason to talk to anybody. Immigrants and refugees are often coming from places where they were having a hard time taking care of the material needs. When you don't have any money, all you've got are your friends, so they learned to be more social in order to get along and survive. Long time Americans have had so much stuff for so long we can dispense with any unwanted social contact. New immigrants haven't achieved that much prosperity so they still depend on their friends, hence more social contact, hence more contagion.

Came across an article about friendship the other day but neglected to make a note of it. In essence, there are three kinds of friends:

1. friends who are useful to each other, who help each other out.
2. friends who find pleasure in each others company. Could be physical or mental.
3. friends who have shared values, i.e they have the same, or similar, beliefs about what's important. The founding fathers, for instance.