GOOD: So far, no spike in coronavirus in places reopening, U.S. health secretary says. It’s looking like this is going to turn out to be a seasonal virus that will fade away over the summer. I certainly hope so, and I hope it doesn’t come back in the fall.
Archive for 2020
May 17, 2020
A WINDSHIELD MADE OF AIR.
AN ORGY OF PLAGUE DEATH, DEFERRED: Florida and Georgia Were Right, and Their Critics Were Wrong.
Ron Fournier, and the rest of “Our Nevermind Media,” hardest hit.
THE FIRST RULE OF ITALIAN DRIVING: WHAT’S BEHIND ME IS NOT IMPORTANT. The Cannonball Run record has been broken seven times in five weeks during the Coronavirus lockdown. “The time to beat is now less than 26 hours. A sub 28-hour Cannonball Run was once unthinkable.”
Classical reference in headline:
FOR ONE THING, BETWEEN THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST OUR RISK THRESHOLDS WERE HIGHER: Why American life went on as normal during the killer pandemic of 1969. Also, flu was not a novel infectious agent.
CUOMOVIRUS UPDATE: Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus.
Read the whole thing. This New York Times map could be misinterpreted merely as travel, but as the article notes, it’s based on the “56,000 mail-forwarding requests from New York City” received by the United States Post Office in March, “more than double the monthly average. In April, the number of requests went up to 81,000, twice the number from a year earlier. Sixty percent of those new requests were for destinations outside the city.”
Also at the Gray Lady: Coronavirus Is Hitting Nursing Homes Hard. How We Treat the Elderly Made It Inevitable. The passive use of “inevitable” in the article’s metatitle to deflect the blame away from Andrew Cuomo is quite a tell.
● Rep. Elise Stefanik calls for fed probe of Cuomo’s nursing home policy.
● Andrew Cuomo Reveals The Danger Of Praising ‘Tone’ And ‘Norms.’
● NYPD will stop people from partying outside NYC bars: de Blasio.
WILD BEASTS ROAMING CIVILIZED AREAS WAS NOT HISTORICALLY REGARDED AS A GOOD SIGN: Leopards spotted in Pakistan capital’s park as virus clears way.
WELL, YES. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR MONTHS, AND TRIALS THAT DON’T INCLUDE ZINC ARE LIKELY WORTHLESS: Zinc might boost effectiveness of malaria drug against COVID-19, experts say.
ANDREW MCCARTHY: Unmasking? The Real Story Is When Flynn Was Not Masked in the First Place:
Don’t get me wrong. This week’s revelations about unmasking are important and intriguing. They should be thoroughly examined. In fact, they are only a snapshot of the unmasking issue — involving just one U.S. person (Flynn) over a period of less than three months. It is highly irregular for government officials on the political side of the national-security realm to seek the unmasking of Americans. It is eye-opening to learn that Vice President Biden and President Obama’s chief-of-staff (McDonough) unmasked the incoming Trump administration’s national security advisor. It is downright scandalous that Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, who had little reason to seek unmasking, reportedly requested 260 unmaskings . . . and then told Congress that she did not make the vast majority of requests attributed to her — though it remains unclear, years later, who did make them.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. This is not just about unmasking. It is about how pervasively the Obama administration was monitoring the Trump campaign.
Read the whole thing.
HMM: Neuroscientists Think They’ve Found a Previously Unknown Form of Neural Communication. “Scientists think they’ve identified a previously unknown form of neural communication that self-propagates across brain tissue, and can leap wirelessly from neurons in one section of brain tissue to another – even if they’ve been surgically severed.” Quantum entanglement.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: In “Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings,” David Thompson asks, “Attention woke citizens. During the current lockdown, do you feel a need to ‘challenge microaggressions’ – those ‘verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights’? Specifically, those committed during video conferencing?”
Read the whole thing.
WELL, THERE YOU ARE: Reminder: Adolf Hitler Also Wanted To Go Outside And Do Things.
HE’S RIGHT. THE CDC HAS BEEN A PANTLOAD OF FAIL ALL ALONG: White House aide says CDC ‘let the country down.’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “really did set us back” in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak by keeping testing within the bureaucracy and providing a faulty test, White House adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday.
“The CDC, which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space, really let the country down,” Navarro, the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator, told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Among other errors.
STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK: During the 1970s and 80s, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp was one of progressive rock’s most innovative guitarists, despite being perhaps the only electric guitar player who played live sets exclusively while perched on a stool. But no more! Here he is with his wife, singer Toyah Willcox, and he’s off the stool and showing off his dance moves! Toyah & Fripp: Swan Lake Sunday Lockdown Lunch.
The black shirt and black tie coordinating with the tutu really demonstrates total fashion commitment, another Fripp trademark.
NEWS FROM MY NECK OF THE WOODS: Knox County Health Department reports 46 active COVID-19 cases, no patients currently hospitalized. “The Knox County Health Department reported two new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, to bring the county’s total to 308. Knox County reported 46 active cases on Sunday, down from 55 active cases on Saturday. The total number of recovered cases moved to 257. . . . There are no Knox County patients currently hospitalized due to COVID-19. Of the 308 cases, 37 of them have resulted in hospitalization at any point during the illness and five deaths.”
In other news, the Insta-Wife and I went out to brunch today, for our first meal out in two months. The place wasn’t crowded; all the outdoor seating spaces were full, and maybe half of the indoor ones. But I predict that will change as word spreads that it’s open and as people get used to going out again. We also went walking around downtown Knoxville yesterday, and while it wasn’t as busy as a usual pretty Saturday, it was a far cry from the ghost town of three weeks ago: People were walking around and shopping, restaurants were open, etc. Steps toward normality.
MEDIA MYTH ALERT: