Althouse: "A few days into Italy’s lockdown, people across the country sang and played music from their balconies as they came together to say 'Everything will be alright' (Andrà tutto bene)."

April 1, 2020

"A few days into Italy’s lockdown, people across the country sang and played music from their balconies as they came together to say 'Everything will be alright' (Andrà tutto bene)."

"Three weeks on, the singing has stopped and social unrest is mounting as a significant part of the population, especially in the poorer south, realise that everything is not all right. 'They are no longer singing or dancing on the balconies,' said Salvatore Melluso, a priest at Caritas Diocesana di Napoli, a church-run charity in Naples. 'Now people are more afraid – not so much of the virus, but of poverty. Many are out of work and hungry. There are now long queues at food banks.'"

The Guardian reports.

242 comments:

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Inga said...: “Regular jello, like strawberry flavored jello?”

Yes, regular jello, with sugar in it, not artificial sweetener.; 4/1/20, 9:22 PM
Inga said...: In whatever flavor you like.; 4/1/20, 9:22 PM
Inga said...: “Many of the conservatives here in Waukesha County bought their McMansions with money they made outsourcing their companies manufacturing to China for the last 20 years.”

“This is a stupid and mendacious lie.”

Achilles seems to think he knows the people who live in my area better than I do. Of course Achilles knows better than the world’s most renowned epidemiologists too.; 4/1/20, 9:24 PM
Howard said...: It was pretty easy to do the fasting mimicking diet. There is no way I could do a straight water fast for 5 days.

You go into ketosis at about 3 days. I kind of screwed up the refeeding phase by not eating enough on the second day back to full meals and I plunged immediately back into ketosis and lost two pounds in a day. I was really interested in figuring out what my calorie requirement was 2 maintain a constant weight. I determined that I was using between 2200 to 2700 calories per day depending on workouts. I quit counting the calories 2 weeks ago and just eat whenever I'm hungry within a 12-hour window.

I call myself a vegan with benefits. I'm eating mostly a vegan diet but I do flavor soups and stews with meat and then I eat sardines once a week and use fish sauce as a flavor enhancer.; 4/1/20, 9:31 PM
Rick said...: All the lefties here are operating off a 1980's/Monopoly Man version of the republican party,

Which makes sense since none of their beliefs have changed since the third grade.; 4/1/20, 9:33 PM
Howard said...: Wait Rick, I thought Clinton change the Democrat Party to be the 1980s Monopoly tycoon globalists? before that the Dems were beholden to the blue collar working Man and the urban poor. That's a pretty significant change since the third grade.; 4/1/20, 9:39 PM
mockturtle said...: Mandrewa: I watched that video today and found it very convincing, in part because I remember reading an abstract from one of those researchers before it was knocked off the internet. As I always suspected, not a bioweapon but probably genetically modified and accidentally escaped the lab. After the crisis is over, I hope we shall be able to get the real story. It would be easier if there weren't so many Deep Staters carrying China's water.; 4/1/20, 9:43 PM
Darrell said...: Somebody tried that balcony singing in NYC and in two seconds somebody shouted "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"; 4/1/20, 9:57 PM
Narr said...: IAN Paul Krugman, but high-paying jobs are more likely to return if we get the chance to retool and rebuild the country than not, and the sooner we start--May-June--the better. It may turn out to be a good thing we never actually spent that Ought Nine stimulus money on shovel-ready infrastructure projects designed for B.Cv. (Before Chicomvirus)

Like others here, I can see the costs of shutdown compounding pretty quickly; even well-off retirees should forget any notion that they can coast through while everyone else cowers for months longer.

Not happening.

Narr
Retiree; 4/1/20, 10:04 PM
320Busdriver said...: Amazing stats from Dr Stephen Smith on Laura Ingraham tonight. He’s treating 80 covid patients.
The good.

Not one person under who has received several days of Hydroxychloroquine + Azith has required a vent.

The not so good. All 20 who required a vent were pre diabetic or diabetic. Those with severe disease had an avg BMI 30 or higher.

He said “ this is the beginning of the end of this pandemic”. due to the drug efficacy.; 4/1/20, 10:07 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: MayBee, I’m glad you get it.

Just after I said I’d try to be more moderate in tone I got crabby again. Sorry. It’s exasperating to be, by dint of my vocation, surrounded by high-emotion, low-logic people all the time. E.g, women who are at home and on social media all day. Maybe I’m not seeing a representative slice but of my day to day, moms-of-my-kids and women-in-my-neighborhood acquaintances and friends, not any of them are thinking or at least expressing “what does success mean?” or “what are the long term costs of this” but rather all seeing who can win the Hysteria Olympics. Someone actually said she wouldn’t send her kids back to school this year even if they open (doubtful). “I’m not risking their lives1!!1!1” OMG lady; your kids are more at risk in your car to school than they are from the virus; cheesus.; 4/1/20, 10:16 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: And the shameless spying and snitching on neighbors is completely contemptible.; 4/1/20, 10:17 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Of course, much of European culture is to food shop every few days, or even every day."

That's the norm in New York City, too.; 4/1/20, 10:34 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Good fucking grief, Laslo! I can't believe what you just wrote- it is the most reckless, idiotic idea I have ever heard........please use a condom. That is all.; 4/1/20, 10:36 PM
Robert Cook said...: "I like the Amazon warehouse closings and union strike threats. It's called leverage. It should turn everybody against unions pretty much."

No, it should turn everybody against Amazon, pretty much, for their onerous work conditions.; 4/1/20, 10:39 PM
Robert Cook said...: "It might be time to float the argument that labor law is unconstitutional. X and Y should not be able to gain more rights against Z by joining forces than they already had individually. In particular they can't force Z to negotiate with them."

Completely ridiculous. First of all, how can labor law be unconstitutional in any case? It part of the Congress' power to regulate commerce. Also, even disregarding that, how can laws pertaining to unions in non-government institutions be unconstitutional? Finally, how is it more just that Z have all the power and X and Y none, as opposed to X and Y joining together to claim for themselves some degree of parity negotiating power with Z?

I suppose you advocate a world where every worker is alone and powerless, protected neither by law nor union, each worker a serf or slave working strictly at the pleasure of and for whatever meager compensation is grudgingly paid by each corporate lord of the manor. I suppose you admire the Chinese sweat-shop factory system as the ideal for the U.S.; 4/1/20, 10:57 PM
effinayright said...: You leftnoids who condemn facotry owners for fleeing to China don't have much to say about Pinky-Ringed Union Bosses who make $400K - $600K/yr syphoning off dues from their members as they seek to jack up wages to the point where American-made products are uncompetitive.

Look here to see what they make:

https://tinyurl.com/van4onb

I wonder how many McMansions **they** build with all that money......Inga.; 4/1/20, 11:04 PM
DavidUW said...: Not surprised, power tripping Newsom and the lazy union teachers canceled the rest of the school year

Glad we’re paying the local superintendent $315,000/year plus the same for 30 years in retirement; 4/1/20, 11:04 PM
doctrev said...: Robert Cook said...

No, it should turn everybody against Amazon, pretty much, for their onerous work conditions.

4/1/20, 10:39 PM

I'm closer to Cook's view than Reason.com's, that's for certain. If Trump ended up nationalizing Amazon to make sure the pandemic disaster had a better resolution for workers and customers alike, I think only the Randians and Clintonites would sustain their objections.

Still, labow law that coexists with a flood of illegal alien labor is farcical, and with mass unemployment you're going to see a VERY low tolerance of that. The relatively low tolerance of illegals in good times is how you got Trump. What do you suppose will happen in bad times?; 4/1/20, 11:05 PM
Robert Cook said...: "The communist totalitarian mass murderers who imprison millions and harvest prisoners organs and force women to have abortions and who lied about the virus and then got the WHO to lie about the virus and who purposely shipped faulty medical products around the globe in the middle of a global pandemic and who have stolen US firm technical secrets and hacked every major agency of our government...........are just as bad as US factory owners."

More people are imprisoned in the U.S. than in China, both in number of people incarcerated and as a percentage of our respective populations, which is astonishing when you consider China has a vastly greater population than the U.S. (China does come in second in sheer numbers behind us, and Russia third, with Russia second behind us in per capita incarceration rates.)

As for the rest, you have described the capitalist wet dream!

(How can you be unaware of US corporations stealing technical secrets from other firms, of US corporations selling defective and toxic products of all types, of US corporations price-gouging on necessary medications which had previously sold for affordable prices,(e.g., Insulin), of US spy agencies hacking every U.S. citizen's computers and phones, of the US being a lawless global actor?); 4/1/20, 11:25 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-cases-map.html; 4/1/20, 11:43 PM
Birkel said...: More than two million Uighurs are imprisoned but do not make China's official stats. And that's just the ones who have not yet been organ harvested and/or worked to death. The mass graves are a thing of beauty to any communist's eye.

Robert Cook is carrying CCP propaganda and lies.; 4/1/20, 11:51 PM
Drago said...: Cook: "More people are imprisoned in the U.S. than in China"

Stalinists still believing the Maoist lies.

That makes sense I guess.; 4/1/20, 11:57 PM
Drago said...: Birkel: "Robert Cook is carrying CCP propaganda and lies."

Cook is going to have to work hard to catch up with ARM in that department.; 4/1/20, 11:58 PM
Derve Swanson said...: Can't we all chalk some messages of hope for the Italians?

C'mon kids, let's put on a show!; 4/2/20, 12:30 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I want to offer my apologies also to those I’ve been snappish with, including but not limited to Freeman.

Thank you, Pants. I really appreciate it.

We don't have people spying on each other here, maybe because there's no official stay at home order. That sounds really grating and obnoxious.; 4/2/20, 12:45 AM
Drago said...: Mary E. Glynn: "Can't we all chalk some messages of hope for the Italians?"

Perhaps we should just have a "Hug an Italian Now!" program.

That way we could behave in the precisely in the same way as the very very very superior Europeans.; 4/2/20, 12:59 AM
eric said...: Blogger YoungHegelian said...
Here's what I think is going to happen:

The economic shutdown periods coming from the local authorities are simply not realistic. The economic dislocation will be more than the populace can bear after a relatively short period of time. The question, for the politicians is -- what is that limit? How far can the populace be pushed? According to modern medical wisdom, the farther, the better.

What will happen is that there is going to be a wave of from-below civil disobedience like the country has never seen. The cops will cease, out of both sympathy & frustration, to enforce the social quarantines. They are cops after all and not an army of occupation.

After the ground-swell from below, the various government bodies will make a great show of bowing to The Will Of The People. And, then, what will come, will come. The plague will work its way through the population, attenuated by the epidemiological steps taken up to that point, medical treatments, &, by the grace of God, warmer weather.

Come what may, the politicians will be able to say to the electorate if the shit really hits the fan --- "We tried, but you wouldn't listen". If the course of the virus is relatively mild, they will join us all in a Mass of Thanksgiving, and be publicly grateful for being spared this time, like the rest of us. No one wants to be a bad sport & shot the wounded after the battle is won, after all.

4/1/20, 7:25 PM

I'd say you're pretty spot on except for the ending.

A lot of lives are currently being ruined.

Suppose it turns out that this virus really wasn't all that bad. That we panicked, allowed fear to grab hold, and if we hadn't panicked, if we would have just used our heads and did the wise thing like quarantine those who are most vulnerable and allow the rest of society to gain herd immunity, then we wouldn't have ruined our economy?

How pissed off do you think people who are financially ruined are going to be?

You think they're just going to say, "Oh well, at least we all survived."???

Don't bet on it. There's going to be hell to pay.; 4/2/20, 1:43 AM
chickelit said...: Robert Cook said...No, it should turn everybody against Amazon, pretty much, for their onerous work conditions.

I used to buy more from Amazon online than I do now. -- and this started before CV-19. Now I look secondly to eBay and usually end up buying from them. I was an early eBay adapter (before Amazon) but almost gave up on them because of exorbitant "shipping" costs. That seems to have changed. Plus eBay seems to be a vast network of independent sellers, rather than than centralized shipping. You can tell when the package arrives: Amazon is bland, in corporate shipping boxes: eBay is a hodgepodge of diverse shipping.; 4/2/20, 1:46 AM
JPS said...: Interesting article, but I find myself more interested in what the comments here tell me about the U.S., which I am missing just now.

I write from mid-week 4 of lockdown in northern Italy. We can go out to shop, and the stores (after a mass Oh Crap! at the beginning) have done a hell of a job keeping stocked. The balcony singing did happen, I assure any skeptic. Lot of Italian flags on balconies. (Only one EU flag I’ve seen, it’s not a common sentiment.) Anyone not in the thick of the fight - I include both medical providers, and the people supplying necessities - is pretty much just riding it out here.

This being Italy, the necessities we’re allowed to go out and shop for include wine and good coffee. It’s a very dog-friendly country, you can go out to walk your dog, no questions asked. (But I can’t take my kids out.) There’s a funny Facebook meme with a snarling little dog exclaiming, “Ho gia pisciato!” (I’ve already pissed!) Actually, as far as we can tell the dogs are loving their inexplicable good fortune.

I greatly prefer being an American, but I will say there seems to be less tendency here to hate each other’s guts over this: for people to yell You don’t care about people dying! or, You don’t care that you’re ruining people’s livelihoods! Maybe because it got so bad here (in the north), there’s no significant group of people questioning whether all this isolation is necessary. The south hasn’t been hit nearly as badly, and has less economic security, so maybe there will be more people feeling the pain of the lockdown more than that of the epidemic, and maybe they will rebel.

Y’all stay well.; 4/2/20, 2:53 AM
Big Mike said...: I wonder how many McMansions **they** build with all that money

@wholelottasplainin', none. They built real mansions.; 4/2/20, 5:38 AM
Big Mike said...: Robert Cook is stupid enough to believe official Chinese propaganda. Cookie, I know you’re dumber than a box of rocks, but why do you feel a need to brag about that fact?; 4/2/20, 5:42 AM
Big Mike said...: @Achilles, hard as it may be to believe, Inga is actually pretty close to right. In fact I used to read articles in business magazines how firms getting ready for IPOs were advised by Wall Street that they had to have a “China strategy’ or their IPO would fail. When the wife and I were shopping for furniture we were told that most old line furniture manufacturers in North Carolina were harvesting timber in North Carolina, shipping it to China, manufacturing the furniture there, and shipping it back to NC because that was cheaper. I found that hard to believe, because you can’t ship east coast to China and back again for small amounts of money, but apparently the story is true.; 4/2/20, 5:55 AM
Rocketeer said...: More people are imprisoned in the U.S. than in China

How do you figure? The number of imprisoned in China is 1.386 billion.; 4/2/20, 6:11 AM
tim in vermont said...: "bought their McMansions with money they made outsourcing their companies manufacturing to China for the last 20 years.”

You mean like Justin Amash? Who’s been trying to bring those jobs back, Inga. Go on, say it, starts with a ’T’.; 4/2/20, 7:30 AM
tim in vermont said...: There are more probably people in concentration camps in China than there are in prisons in the US.; 4/2/20, 7:32 AM
Rick said...: Big Mike said...
@Achilles, hard as it may be to believe, Inga is actually pretty close to right.

No, she's not even close to right. The percentage of people who own businesses is incredibly small. The subset of those which are manufacturers is even smaller. The idea that there is any significant number of such people anywhere much less in Wisconsin is stupid. Her only goal is to slime conservatives - i.e. her motivation for every comment she makes.; 4/2/20, 8:39 AM
Narr said...: Rocketeer nails it. Very fine.

Reminds me of the stories about high-security facilities in the USSR. Apparently they were quite poorly protected by Western standards. Why? Because the whole country was a big jail already, and nobody wandered around freely.

Narr
Life as it is lived . . .; 4/2/20, 10:51 AM
Robert Cook said...: I notice those who cry "fake news" at my statement that China imprisons fewer people than the USA assert their certainty that China is lying about its prison population. Well, that may be, I cannot say for sure they don't. However, none of these refuseniks address my real point. Whether China's prison population is actually greater in number and per/capita than the US (or not) is less pertinent than the fact of our own astronomically high prison population and per/capita incarceration rate, high enough that we indisputably rival China as a prison state. None address the horrible conditions in which our prisoners languish, most of whom are in prison for non-violent crimes. We joke and leer about prison rape (among other prison prisoner-on-prisoner assaults) as if it is something the victims deserve. The point is that we are in no position to condemn other nations for their oppressive legal and penal systems. We are up there with the big boys as a prison nation.

Ah, but you'll all say, "They're in prison because they're criminals! They deserve what they get!" In other words, you are authoritarians who would serve well as members of China's ruling government.; 4/2/20, 11:47 AM
Rick said...: Robert Cook said...
Ah, but you'll all say, "They're in prison because they're criminals! They deserve what they get!" In other words, you are authoritarians who would serve well as members of China's ruling government.

It's revealing Cook doesn't think there's a difference between controlling criminals and controlling citizens. I'm greatly amused the person who thinks people's very existence justifies taking their freedom rather justifying it only when a crime has been committed thinks other people fail the morality test.; 4/2/20, 12:56 PM
Robert Cook said...: Rick,

You confuse me with one of your fellow authoritarians. You also are another who refuses to recognize your own obtuseness. We condemn China as a totalitarian state, yet we hold more of our citizens in prison than they, (to the extent that available statistics can be accepted). At the very least, we are rivals with China as being among the world's leading nations in incarcerating tremendous numbers of our citizens. Making glib accusations that "all Chinese are controlled/imprisoned simply by living in China" is just that, glib, especially given that our government spies on all of us all the time, and can track our comings and goings and access our electronic communications. It is a means to ignore our own wretched record on human rights, incarceration, and treatment of those who find themselves in our state's disfavor. It allows us to pretend to a virtue we have never had. It is a way to live in a dream.

There are certainly human rights abuses in China, and Russia, and throughout the world. Yet, first and foremost, we need to reform the human rights abuses in our own country before assuming hypocritical moral posturing vis a vis other nations.; 4/2/20, 2:28 PM
Rick said...: You also are another who refuses to recognize your own obtuseness.

You're an idiot Cook. Regardless of what we do wrong your own desire to design government to control everyone has no justification.

Making glib accusations that "all Chinese are controlled/imprisoned simply by living in China" is just that, glib,

You stick to pretending massive restrictions on freedom aren't a problem Cook. After all it's the underlying premise of your entire governance framework.

It is a means to ignore

In fact we libertarians are the only ones not ignoring it. After all you don't oppose it, you use it as a justification to advance similar rights restrictions for everyone.; 4/2/20, 6:08 PM