... you can't go anywhere, but you can talk about anything.
Re-enjoy the sunrise, this time with coots. The photo was taken at 6:33 a.m. — 7 minutes after the other photo I put up today.
Here's the live stream of “At Home With Farm Aid." It was Dave Matthews last I looked. Others who will be playing from home: Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp. You may enjoy that. I like the home setting.
And one last extra, just to show you I got out on my mountain bike today, in a pretty place with plenty of social distancing:
Posts
354 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 354 of 354Mr. Farmer,
Apology accepted. And thank you for accepting mine. Yes, the time lag is a snag. Real-life conversation is so much more satisfying!
I don’t really get offended. I have become difficult to offend, having suffered some family catastrophe that renders me incapable of being bothered by 99% of what happens to me.
I have been lurking here a long time, reading the comments, getting a feel for people. I really like you. Insofar as one can like someone one has never met. I find many of your comments to be in line with my way of thinking, and those that aren’t...well, I don’t even agree with myself some of the time.
I suspect we are describing similar perceptions—me from a skeptical side, you from a more precautionary side.
Certainly it is hard to make decisions with a dearth of information. And even a plethora of information can be difficult to interpret. I do not attribute malice to people I assume are doing the best to do what is right for as many people as possible.
I see the mean girls have come out to gang up on others once again.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
/s
"Are we comparing BILs? Mine is a prof at a major medical school, former department head, and is director of a medical research institute."
Let's.
Mine is a firewatch supervisor at a chemical plant nearby. He's been laid off for weeks now. Zero income. Because one guy came in with a cough one day. And he's not alone.
But screw him, right? If he wanted to MATTER, he'd have become a researcher. What the fuck do we need firewatch for anyway? Like, what kind of fool stands around in an area of a chemical plant where a fire could happen? Surely not an important professor.
@Drago:
You were being hypocritical.
It was noticed.
Not applying the same standard to two different people is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not applying moral standards you claim to have to yourself. it's in the dictionary under H. Go look it up if you don't believe me.
This upsets you.
I don't care.
Again you've missed the point. You're free to call me any name in the book. Believe me, I'll find the strength to carry on. Even if I was guilty of every flaw you accuse me of, it would still make no difference to whether anything I said was right or wrong.
I appreciate how so few of you know people who are facing not just material loss but also complete destitution because the government is forcing them to be unproductive. One of them I know has just had a granddaughter for whom she is sadly responsible. Another couple I know are going to go from seven profitable restaurants down to, maybe, two. Their workers will be unemployed. Another restaurant owner has four kids and his entire staff is unemployed except the head cook. Several retirees believe they will not have enough money to live as they would prefer. The angst is real.
Meanwhile, we privileged few are so far less affected. But the knock-on costs of the current decisions means that we too will bear hardships. And for some of you I expect you need some, good and hard.
That was insufferable twaddle on john lennons part wasnt it. It only makes sense in the vision of God which is studiously omitted from his viewpoint
Kyzer: "The most hardcore of them are so anti-Trump that they refuse to admit the potential - hell, the proven efficacy of the HCQ-Zinc-ZPak cocktail (which is still my go-to choice if I get this flu, for the second time) - instead whining uselessly about how it's not been thru expensive, yearslong, error-prone clinical trials, hyping the (rare and generally minor) potential side effects, and claiming that Trump is poised to make billions in sales (when in fact, he might just make enough to afford a used 2003 Honda Civic with low miles)."
Indeed.
Many of our most ardent conspiracy theorists, some with names that rhyme with "ringa", have been launching new conspiracies almost every other day.
The latest 3 have been the one you mentioned, Trump is profiting off HCQ (which is the ONLY reason he's hyping it), Trump was supposedly given a report by US intel in Nov about the virus (debunked within minutes by our medical intel head) and that Trump was denying needed PPE to states with democrat governors while only helping republican governors.
And don't worry. By the end of next week there will be at least 3 more on the way to Sham-peachment III, which has already kicked off in the House.
@Kyzer,
I am sorry about your BIL. Really. What I find interesting is so many people do jobs that most of never knew existed. Important jobs. Like your BIL.
I wish that the people who are so concerned that they might catch the Chinese Pangolin Pox (sorry, I just can’t be formal about this shit) would be equally concerned about people like your BIL.
I think the panicked are really narcissistic. They are only concerned about themselves—and wrongly think that they will die from this stoopid virus. They really don’t care if your BIL can’t take care of his family.
I do not understand that level of self-absorption.
"Even if I was guilty of every flaw..."
You are guilty of poor writing.
The obtuseness of the pro-shutdown crowd is staggering. Has anyone looked at the sky lately? Are we undergoing a pod people type invasion? Millions of Americans cannot pay their bills, have zero income, and are queuing in goddamn lines at food banks (when 2 months ago they had little to no trouble keeping a stocked pantry) because idiot governors have ENTIRE states on lockdown, and you're literally just okay with this?
Do you see the fucking problem? Are you that blind? Lock down a city, a county - if enough cases begin to manifest - fine. A whole state? A WHOLE state? A whole STATE? I'll resort to camel-case if I have to in order to get a straight answer. Someone, enlighten me why all the restaurants in Oneonta, NY need to be closed for this? Why nobody can get a haircut in Princeton, IL? Why a waitress with 2 kids is looking at empty shelves in her kitchen in Lakeland, FL?
Farmer: "Not applying the same standard to two different people is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not applying moral standards you claim to have to yourself."
You joined a side in this back and forth.
Ken B and probably everyone else noticed it.
Then you chose to call out the other side for what your chosen side had been engaging in.
But I get it. Better to pretend you were just being some neutral and objective observer.
Got it.
“I do not understand that level of self-absorption.”
Oh but we all should be concerned about your lesion!
Anne,
Please call it Winnie Xi Flu.
It's whimsical and Chairman Xi hates the comparison.
I like whimsy.
Kyzer SoSay: "The obtuseness of the pro-shutdown crowd is staggering. Has anyone looked at the sky lately? Are we undergoing a pod people type invasion? Millions of Americans cannot pay their bills, have zero income, and are queuing in goddamn lines at food banks (when 2 months ago they had little to no trouble keeping a stocked pantry) because idiot governors have ENTIRE states on lockdown, and you're literally just okay with this?"
Yes they are. Very much so. Happily so.
They very much intend to not let this crisis go to waste.
@Anne:
Thank you very much for the kind words. I am certainly no stranger to letting passion get the better of me in a discussion. I agree that there is still a lot we do not know, and I certainly do not advocate blind adherence to the statement of "experts." But I do try to read people who I consider honest explaining why they believe the way they do. I try to read different perspectives. And I try to make the best judgment possible. It's an imperfect process, but given the limits of human knowledge, we have to eventually rely on the opinion of others as best we can. It is certainly no guarantee that one will be correct, and I always support allowing as many voices as possible.
Thank you for the back and forth, and I am happy we could end on a conciliatory note. Happy Easter to you and your family. Stay safe and healthy.
There is a lot of xao yao (dezinforma, i think thats how its transliterated) out there. When even dr. Wen liang was being silenced, how could anyone like an american intelligence officer get access to wuhans key admission sites, or ataff there get into the embassy.
@Birkel,
Ezackery. I am insulated from the economic fallout of this insanity, for the most part. I work in Pharma. I keep getting a paycheck. My job will be waiting for me. I am not so close to retirement that I can’t wait for my 401k to recover.
I suspect that no one here who is concerned about their own health and the Virus! To the detriment of the economic health of others is in any danger of missing a meal, or a mortgage payment, or a payroll. They seem to be uniquely unimaginative.
I normally scoff at the idea of privilege, but this is surely a concrete instantiation of the concept.
“How interesting. A poor-quality televisit for a speciality that relies on visual inspection. Had that lovely visit this past week. Fortunately, I have a very bright light I use for needlework.
Going in for a biopsy next Tuesday.”
Sure sounds like you were upset at not being seen. I imagine he would have wanted a biopsy even if he had palpated you, right?
I hope it turns out alright. But it sounds like Inga was right too.
What to the insults and ad hominems and denigrations and unsupported bad faith accusations and other descents into the personal of other commenters have anything to do with the issues at hand?
They are not only tedious to the point of nausea, they are completely irrelevant to anything. And they degrade the attacker more than the person attacked.
Anne, there is something you need to understand.
If you want Inga to accept something, even something transparently and hilariously false, all you have to do is pretend its some sort of "dossier".
Inga swallows that one every single time. She's sort of like a Ron Burgundy reading a teleprompter when it comes to hoax dossiers.
"They really don’t care if your BIL can’t take care of his family."
My bad, I threw a bit of a red herring myself, if I implied my BIL has a family to support. He does not, he is much younger than I, but he does have bills and expenses and all the other things that require income to sustain. And as I mentioned, his fellow workers are all in the same boat, and many if not most of them certainly do have families. Carpenters, insulators, laborers, ironworkers, welders, plant operators, safety guys (aka pig-fuckers), etc. The lucky ones are able to slot-in at other job sites, ones not closed, but there are more wanting work than there are open facilities at the moment.
Mark,
You are better than are we.
Now what?
I checked on a young couple at my church today - she is a self-employed court reporter and he sells carpet in his family's interiors store. They have a four year old who plays with my four year old. They had a little money set aside, maybe a month or two's worth of expenses, but they didn't have a lot of extra at the end of the month to set aside in the first place. Guess who has no income at all now, and won't, unless Governor Abbott allows the courts and interiors stores to reopen. Maybe people will spend money on carpet, maybe they won't. Maybe my friends will be able to keep their house, maybe they won't. Maybe they'll be able to pay their health insurance premiums, maybe they won't.
60 cases in my county of 360,000; no deaths.
How can any of you people defend this?
Mr. Farmer,
Thank you. Even though my Easter is next week.
I hope you have a refreshing sleep and awaken with happiness and enthusiasm.
No I'm not, Birkel.
But then again, what Mark is or isn't is not the point of anything.
Adam brookes night heron, illustrates how hard it is for dissident info to reach the hands of western officials,
Mark
The problem with your pieties is that you have insulted me and questioned my motive on more than one occasion.
No forgiveness without repentance I am afraid. I am a stickler.
“They are not only tedious to the point of nausea, they are completely irrelevant to anything. And they degrade the attacker more than the person attacked.”
Oh shut up Mark, you aren’t teaching Sunday School here.
And so the mean dogs turn to circle someone else.
Let it go.
this concerned the df 21 missile
Inga
Remember when Mark called you a liar and a doxxer? He called three of us doxxers and questioned our motives. Because we remembered he was a “Christian educator”!
A chemical plant is shut down? Is that a place where they make chemicals? Chemicals that support other economic activity? Chemicals that without which we cannot have things we might like?
Like plastics?
Like well crafted metal parts that require chemicals to get rid of metal burrs that can cause production flaws? Like the ones that work inside machines that keep the lights on? Or the internet working? Or building and bridges from falling?
I would bet they make chemicals that are necessary for other businesses until eventually we find an "essential" business at the end of some supply chain.
Mark thinks when he insults others it’s not an insult and then when he gets just a little of his own medicine back he reverts to his little Miss Sunday School reacher role.
@Ken B,
I was a little upset at the “office visit in June” thing. Once she admitted there were televisits available, I lost my upsettedness. Because i knew that the doc would take one look at my thing and want to biopsy it. (I could just hear my sister saying, “It’s NOT a toomah.”)
But my bigger point remains. I don’t think it is an arguable point that many, many people are not very good at taking care of themselves. They put off doctor’s visits. They let lumps in their breasts go. They ignore bowel symptoms that point to a colonoscopy. This leads to unnecessary suffering, worry, sickness, and death.
This shutdown has meant that people who aren’t very good at pushing to be seen by their physicians are letting things go that will result in increased morbidity and mortality. I see that as bad. Do you?
“Inga
Remember when Mark called you a liar and a doxxer? He called three of us doxxers and questioned our motives. Because we remembered he was a “Christian educator”!”
I certainly do.
And before anyone asks me if I'm suffering a case of the "suddenly poors", nope. Although, my company did freeze merit increases this year due to the loss of revenue, so I'm a bit miffed about that.
I'm still working. From home. Like I have for the past 7 years, excepting travel and important meetings. My wife is teleteaching her HS kids and adapting. She has lost some income due to the closure of after school assistance programs (which she runs) and other extracurriculars, but it's not noticeable. So, so, so many others simply cannot say that, all due to panic and government overreach and overreaction.
@Drago:
But I get it. Better to pretend you were just being some neutral and objective observer.
I have never made any pretense to objectivity or neutrality. I took exception to a particular comment. Your response was to say that other people also make comments. And I told you that I don't care about those comments. Choosing to respond to one comment does not obligate me to reply to other comments.
Again, I am trying to talk about an idea, and you want to talk about what kind of person I am. The reason I think that is a waste of time is because the content of someone's character has nothing to do with whether anything they say is right or wrong or logical or illogical. A saint can say an incorrect thing, and a serial killer can say a correct thing.
That's about as clear as I can explain it.
Inga: "I certainly do."
But Inga is in fact, a liar.
She still asserts Trump colluded with Russia and Carter Page is a russian spy.
Those are lies.
And lets face it, at this point, those are some pretty embarrassing lies, no?
To be fair, there are at least two different "Mark" commenters.
It's confusing even to non-cvnts.
@Mark and @Birkel,
Don’t get at each other’s throats. Let’s assume benevolence rather than malignancy.
And...how long does it take ignoring Inga (she is a harridan, isn’t she?) before she just shuts up and goes away?
Farmer: "Again, I am trying to talk about an idea, and you want to talk about what kind of person I am."
Another falsehood.
I'm speaking about a particular act.
You want to make it into something larger. Given that you've joined Team Ken/Inga, that sounds about right.
note the last none pinged comment
Birkel: "To be fair, there are at least two different "Mark" commenters."
Mark (hidden profile) is the lefty moron.
Mark (lawyer, VA) is not.
If we must talk about Mark -- as if it had any relevance to anything here -- probably my biggest flaw that I confess over and over again is my lack of patience with other people. As if that was anyone's business either.
From personal experience, I know how poisonous it is. And it also sets a bad example. I don't deny it.
But then again, Mark and Anne and Farmer and Drago and Inga and Ken and everyone else have nothing to do with anything. Fellow commenters may annoy the hell out of you, but they are not the enemy.
This thread reminds me that I'm overdue for my annual skin inspection. I should find out if my dermatologist is open for business. We have only 33 confirmed cases in my county of 150,000 but quite a few more (inc deaths) to east and west, and my 92 y.o. father lives with me.
That's why I would much prefer to talk about really and more important things -- like episodes of Star Trek.
Oh, Anne, calls for decency on the interwebs irritate me. On the internet people are also above average height, intelligence, and etc.
Still, I take chiding from well-meaning people fairly well.
Sorry, Mark.
(whichever one you are, I guess)
@Anne:
Mr. Farmer,
Thank you. Even though my Easter is next week.
I hope you have a refreshing sleep and awaken with happiness and enthusiasm.
Sorry, I forgot that you had said you were Orthodox. I am not sure of your Orthodox by birth, but I know quite a few conservative people who have found a home in Orthodoxy after leaving the Church in Rome. I would be interested to know your background in that regard when time permits.
Also, while I was a bit taken aback after reading your comment that began our back and forth, the relationship between belief and our attitudes towards death is an intriguing subject. I myself am a materialist but am not one of those professional atheists who go around saying religion is the cause of all problems and is all very dupes. I am quite skeptical of the notion of materialism replacing religion on a large scale. Perhaps we can pursue that topic in a future thread.
In any event, good evening.
@Narcisco,
I want to figure out what you are saying, but your links befuddle me.
@Mark,
None of us are the enemy. The Enemy is the enemy. Another my sister and I discuss regularly. The Evil One has many ways of diverting our attention from the Divine. How crafty he is! And how smug he must feel, watching us, most of the time.
Sadly for him, we know the end of the story.
“But my bigger point remains. I don’t think it is an arguable point that many, many people are not very good at taking care of themselves. They put off doctor’s visits. They let lumps in their breasts go. They ignore bowel symptoms that point to a colonoscopy. This leads to unnecessary suffering, worry, sickness, and death.”
Your “bigger point” is a red herring. You advocate ending social distancing early because you have a theory that Covid isn’t as deadly as it is. You have a theory, that is all. The scientists have years of study in epidemiology and years of experience with epidemics and pandemics. No one should be impressed with Anne’s theories. We have seen that social distancing has already flattened the curve and made it possible that our health care system wasn’t complete overwhelmed. Does Anne not think that if social distancing wasn’t put in effect that not only would she not be seeing someone about her lesion, hundreds of thousands would be denied healthcare of all sorts for an even longer period of time? How many healthcare professional would be dying of Covid trying to care for an ever increasing number of it’s victims?
Anne isn’t as smart as she thinks.
@Mr Farmer,
I look forward to an opportunity to converse further on other topics. As I said before, I find you refreshing and challenging—in a very nice way. I love to talk about ideas. It is a fault of mine.
Hoax Dossier Girl: "Anne isn’t as smart as she thinks"
Hmmmmmmm.
You know what we really need right about now?
Open borders.
I know it makes you want to take up a bat' leth and charge.
@Birkel,
Ha! Ann has a tag for “civility,” yes! I agree, calls for civility are irritating. I sometimes give in to my inner mediator. Admittedly, she is absent 99% of the time. I am a person who relishes conflict. I just don’t enjoy name-calling. It short-circuits logic.
I disagree that several of the people on these threads are not my enemy.
I believe they are the enemy of freedom.
And I place great value in freedom.
I believe that concept has strong Biblical foundation, in fact.
But I don't wish them great ill.
You know what else we need right about now?
Increased funding for abortion. Especially post-birth abortion.
Narciso,
Are you Jewish? Not a loaded question.
@Drago,
The adolescent games are amusing. And easily ignored.
You know, if post-birth abortion can "save one life", it will have been worth it.
@Drago,
Now you are just trolling.
Anne: "@Drago,
The adolescent games are amusing. And easily ignored."
They are neither adolescent, nor easily ignored.
QED.
Well they are misinformed, its very east to do so, it takes a persistent effort to cavoid it. Because most purveyors of info from the ap on, are kraven or stupid.
Anne: "@Drago, Now you are just trolling."
These are the explicit stated positions of Inga's fabulous democrat party, which she embraces.
It's called "context".
Former catholic now baptist, but i see the foundations to the faith more clearly.
He does do that on occasion, sadly that is the next thing the serpent suggests.
If a gal like Inga is going to call someone she doesn't know a liar or others easily duped, its perfectly unobjectionable to recount the many, many, many times Inga has been duped by transparently false hoaxes and the lies told by those she embraced.
Perfectly unobjectionable.
@Drago:
You want to make it into something larger. Given that you've joined Team Ken/Inga, that sounds about right.
The "something larger" is evident in your very comment. Your apparent desire to divide people into good people or bad people on the basis of their opinions on certain matters. I commented, and instead of responding to my comment, you responded by attacking my character. You responded to me calling out a certain kind of reaction by saying that I didn't call out a similar reaction another time. You're like the guy that gets pulled over for doing 15mph and tells the cop the guy next to you was doing 20mph over the speed limit. If you can't understand why that isn't a defense, then there's nothing more I can say.
I liked Burns and Allen better before they moved to the big city.
Anne,
To be fair to J Farmer, he types a great many things that make sense. But his internet persona is one I find condescending beyond bearing. He is Smug to me and I wouldn't waste the characters on engaging him. Thankfully he has largely learned to pass me by because I will never give him an inch. So that's one fewer annoyance.
And Ken B would prefer 100 million destitute Americans, make no mistake. He does not want a cure or anything else. He wants broke Americans. I feel confident typing that because the policies he advocates lead only to that set of outcomes.
Liberace was a wonderful artist.
Oh shut up Drago. People are discussing life and death here, not your stupid incessant political grievances.
@Drago,
I have a pretty clear picture of Inga, having read her comments for quite awhile. I just find her easy to ignore. She is not interesting; she is not intelligent; she is not insightful. Why does anyone engage with her? It isn’t interesting.
@Drago,
I am aware that Inga called me a liar. Shrug.
Anne. The lesion gal. You’ve presented yourself pretty clearly and again... I’m not impressed.
I believe some commenters are very afraid of the mortality either they or their loved ones fear will be exposed by Winnie Xi Flu. That's understandable. I think that behavior and guardedness is reasonable.
And I believe they would act prudently even if the neighbors two doors down went to the dog food processing plant and made dog food.
I would harness the personal motivations of so many thousand of people to stay safe. And I would encourage them to do so. And they would. Because the choice is not binary.
But when your pets don't have dog/cat food, fuck 'em.
Drago mentions abortion.
Royal ass Inga (Anne, Royal ass Inga asked me to call her that.)
"People are discussing life and death here, not your stupid incessant political grievances."
Let that marinate.
@Birkel and @Mark and @JFarmer,
Have any of y’all read Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind”? Now that would lead to an valuable discussion. Next evening thread?
I am a person who relishes conflict. I just don’t enjoy name-calling. It short-circuits logic.
Completely agree. Aggressive back-and-forth with the occasional snark can be fun. But there's a reason ad hominems are fallacies. There is no logical connection between someone's character and the soundness of any argument they make. If I were to reply to someone's argument by saying "you're ugly," nobody would accept that as a logical response. But you could replace "ugly" with any other adjective about the person, and it would be just as fallacious.
One should always be on guard for confirmation bias, and cocooning is a habit best resisted. Obviously some degree of like-mindedness is helpful in certain situations, but in general I'd much rather be one person opposed by 20 people than one of 20 people agreeing with each other.
Oh poor Drago, did Anne slap you down a little bit, just when you thought you were being helpful to her?
LOL, life is funny.
When this horrible shutdown is over, I'm pitching my new reality show to the network: Brother-in-Law Wars.
Haidt does not interest me. Most of the academic set is talking to itself in a language they invented so they could generate papers peer reviewed by each other about topics that don't matter. If he's different, I guess that the one grain of wheat that escaped amongst all the chaff.
I read Rawls and poked several gigantic holes though his arguments. Rawls spent 800 pages explaining himself because he needed a heavier door stop.
To be fair, there are holes in all the social "science" works. First, it is not science. Work backward from there.
@Anne:
Have any of y’all read Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind”? Now that would lead to an valuable discussion. Next evening thread?
I have, but it's been some time. I am familiar with Haidt's basic arguments. I am not very enthusiastic about social psychology, but the thesis is definitely in my wheelhouse. I have long argued that the left/right, liberal/conservative dichotomy is not particularly useful in discussing the world. Probably because the political beliefs I've had my entire adult life have been considered fringe (or worse), I have never felt at home in either political party and certainly have no allegiance to any of them.
That made my day dear Ann, Happy Easter to you both.
J. Farmer,
Your tendency to be forthright is why I was a bit surprised that you took (apparent) umbrage at my first comment. It wasn’t an insult—not in the personal way I think of insults (you’re ugly, and your mother dresses your funny). It was just an observation—a speculation about why people seem to be reacting so intensely to this particular life threat,. When they don’t seem to react in a logical way to all the very real existential threats that are out there in the world. And it seems so...narcissistic .. to me. So self-absorbed. But cloaked in the language of concern for others.
And then I see people...those who consider themselves our “rulers,” but who are, in fact, our employees...pushing panic and despair and isolation. And the contraction of liberty. And I feel angry in response, because I don’t like bullies—and encouraging panic in people inclined to panic is a form of bullying. And I don’t like being bossed around, because I am anti-authoritarian and a contrarian and conflict-attracted (rather than conflict-averse)...and so I push back, very hard.
So...anyway. Far more than you wanted to know. I look forward to further conversation. Just don’t call me late for dinner.
Have any of y’all read Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind”?
Sorry, I have not.
A short semi-personal update - we have been locked down here with New York severity for a month. It's been a few days longer in Madrid and Barcelona. We have been seeing New York levels of death for nearly as long. In my case relatives of relatives have been sick, and one died (for whom we had a Skype service, which was very strange).
But the immediate ongoing personal problem is boredom. The Internet is a bad escape as it encourages asocial personal isolation, cutting one off from the people here with you.
The economic consequences here are and will continue to be vastly worse than in the US. We won't be affected by the local situation as my assets and income do not depend on the local economy, but being as this mess is global I have personally taken a tolerable haircut in asset values. That may or may not prompt a limit to our planned travel and spending after this is over, which is going to depend much more on psychology than the contents of my financial statements, but it's going to be a real effect anyway.
No one of us in the US (California) has lost their employment, yet. Knock on wood.
Wintertime on the Biscay coast (not locked down) has some things to recommend it, if one can do without sunshine. Grandeur in Grey and Blue. Biarritz and San Sébastian will be glorious and uncrowded come June.
Manila is by all I hear just as locked down (officially) as New York, or Spain, though they have a tiny fraction of our cases and deaths. Which, knowing the place as I do so intimately, makes me wonder whether even the most important factors in all this are still unknown. "Social distancing" is impossible in a sea of humanity - public transportation there is far more "intimate" than the NY subway, for one thing. They also have (had, prior to a very belated travel ban) massive ongoing travel to and from China, vastly more than Lombardy ever had. But nevertheless they don't die, or only in tiny numbers.
You have the same phenomenon in nearly the whole of the third world. Even the Mexicans aren't dying as the models probably require them to. Which should make it clear that every model is ridiculous.
Climate? The use and coverage of the BCG Tuberculosis vaccine? Population immunity built up from mass exposure to diseases uncommon in the First World? Any model that cannot predict a 20:1 difference in mortality between populations is completely useless.
Aggressive back-and-forth with the occasional snark can be fun. But there's a reason ad hominems are fallacies.
I agree too. Nothing wrong with mixing it up on the issues. Even forcefully.
@Brikel, @JFarmer,
What I find useful/interesting about Haidt’s thesis is the idea that different minds embrace and understand different value sets. And that an inability to appreciate the existence of other values is a prime motivator of disdain for others. I have a now ex-friend (she thinks I am a racist) who is a classic liberal in Haidt’s taxonomy in that she values “do no harm” and “personal expression” above all. When we spoke about the motivations that might impel a woman in India to stay with her family rather than pursue her dream of medical school, she absolutely could not fathom any acceptable reason why a woman would do that. It was an astounding blind split. While I, a conservative, could at least acknowledge the conflicting values that would lead a person to make such a decision.
I think Haidt’s taxonomy is useful and interesting for discussion. That is why I brought it up. And it seems to fit in with many of the topics that come up on this blog.
buwaya,
Thank you for taking the time to check in. Many of us have been concerned and mentioned as much. We are glad you are well.
I would love to read your perspective on the economic damage done to your new haunts. I have been predicting a ROW global depression if we do not soon return to work. And that the US will suffer a debilitating recession that will explode municipal and state government debt problems.
But I am an optimist.
We were concerned about you buwaya, thankfully you are well. Madrid does look horrible in the news, yes the incongruitirs even between countries in the same latitude or region are bewildering
@Birkel:
To be fair to J Farmer, he types a great many things that make sense. But his internet persona is one I find condescending beyond bearing. He is Smug to me and I wouldn't waste the characters on engaging him. Thankfully he has largely learned to pass me by because I will never give him an inch. So that's one fewer annoyance.
Thanks for the kind word. Perhaps it's from working around psychotics, meth heads, and violent criminals my entire life but I just don't find people's "internet persona" much of an obstacle in discussing matters with them. I have no need to like someone in order to listen to what they have to say and consider it. Although, I have to admit to laughing at being called "condescending" by someone who incessantly asserts his moral and intellectual superiority to others. I am more inclined to believe that "money talks, wealth whispers." But hey, it takes all kinds.
Not exactly the Blue Angels
Spoken like a true Navy man...a Naval Aviator at that if memory serves. The eternal debate. LOL, as you would say.
A Thunderbird pilot described the difference between them and the Blues as the Birds are a ballet and the Blues are a rock concert. Different philosophies, but both equally enjoyable.
@heyboom,
I love the inside baseball perspective. To me, it is all a kick. I love watching the planes.
At the risk of wrongfully getting into the personal, having walked around the last week or two, can I say that a mask does absolutely no good if you wear it down around your chin?
I hope i am better understood after that, christianity and judaism the new and old covenants are very tightly linked. How far ive only really understood in the last few years
Anne,
I have lived with and as poor and well-to-do. I have lived widely geographically. And I am of mixed racial heritage. Also, as a conservative I was trained to see Leftist Collectivist points of view. I could not deny their existence and write clearly from those points of view without understanding. So I guess Haidt was less exposed to ideas than was I.
But he wrote for a Leftist audience in a way they could appreciate, which is nice.
But Haidt probably couldn't have been published if he spoke the truth more fully. And I have a guess which way it would be true.
“A short semi-personal update - we have been locked down here with New York severity for a month. It's been a few days longer in Madrid and Barcelona. We have been seeing New York levels of death for nearly as long. In my case relatives of relatives have been sick, and one died (for whom we had a Skype service, which was very strange).”
Good to hear you’re still alive, we were all worried about you, even me. So do you think that Covid19 is a good reason to be locked down? Do you think social distancing is keeping Spain from having an even worse outcome? Would you like to see social distancing ended early and allow the population of Spain take their chances?
Anne,
I have lived with and as poor and well-to-do. I have lived widely geographically. And I am of mixed racial heritage. Also, as a conservative I was trained to see Leftist Collectivist points of view. I could not deny their existence and write clearly from those points of view without understanding. So I guess Haidt was less exposed to ideas than was I.
But he wrote for a Leftist audience in a way they could appreciate, which is nice.
But Haidt probably couldn't have been published if he spoke the truth more fully. And I have a guess which way it would be true.
buwaya,
Good to hear from you. I have been toying with the idea that the main driver of mortality is the rush to the hospitals, which (1) infects the medical personnel and then the other patients; (2) the infected medical personnel help infect the residents of long term care facilities because a number of them work two different jobs- I know this is a common thing because I have family members who work part time in both settings just to have enough hours to pay the bills; (3) I think it probable that the treatments that have been offered are actually counterproductive due to a lack of a full understanding of the disease itself- we treat it like regular viral pneumonia, but there is a growing body of evidence that the treatments are making the patients worse, not better.
I hope, perhaps, that the treatments start to get better so that the trip to the hospital isn't the last one.
The population of Spain is poor. She does not have the resources of America. The lack of understanding of basic facts is extraordinary.
J Farmer,
It ain't bragging if you can do it. - Dizzy Dean
They did jump to ventilators as the primary solutions over remdesvir and the hcq/zpak cocktail rather quickly.
@Anne:
Your tendency to be forthright is why I was a bit surprised that you took (apparent) umbrage at my first comment. It wasn’t an insult—not in the personal way I think of insults (you’re ugly, and your mother dresses your funny). It was just an observation—a speculation about why people seem to be reacting so intensely to this particular life threat,.
I jumped to conclusions too quickly. But there is some background there. I am basically on the precautionary side of the covid-19 and started becoming concerned with it around mid-February. No, I never believed "we're all gonna die" or that it was an existential threat, and I didn't go out and hoard toilet paper. But I was basically concerned that we would end up doing basically what we are doing.
Obviously, in the course of that time, I've gotten quite a bit of push back from people claiming that I was "panicking" or that it was all media hype or that it wouldn't be a big deal or that it was no more concerning than the flu. But then again, I'm not unfamiliar with people disagreeing with me. However, both of my parents are in their 60s and have elevated risk factors. In addition, my father had been working in NYC for the past month, and my mother is an ER physician at a large hospital here. Concern for their safety has weighed heavily on my mind.
Around the same time, covid-19 began to dominate every thread on Ann's blog. I had zero desire to involve myself in such back and forths and opted to just stop reading for a couple of weeks. Only recently have I started reading regularly again and commenting, though with the intent of continuing to avoid any covid-19 threads.
Since this was an open thread, I decided to scroll through it and see what the topics of discussion were. Yours is not a name I see regularly so I read some of your comments. When I came to that comment, I basically read it as you saying that people were overreacting to the threat of covid-19 because they weren't religious. It's fair to say I was guilty of being "triggered" by it. I fired off my first comment, and the rest is history.
They did have some eight years of zapatero, like coumo writ large which didnt help things, the socialist who returned last year to power, confiscated the private hospitals that couldnt be a good thing.
Every employed member of my immediate family is an essential worker. Not so my sister-in-law's family where most of her children are furloughed.
As for essential business's, some aren't even aware they're essential until they're told. One of my sons works for a company that produces things for both the military and health care industries. When business's started closing down he called all his suppliers. 3 of them told him they were shutting down. He explained very carefully to them they couldn't, because he was an essential industry, and without what they supply, he couldn't stay open. Two of the companies went, "Oh. Okay, I guess we're not closing." One of them said they were closing anyway, tough. My son called his DoD liaison and explained the situation. Less than an hour later he got a phone call from one of the third company's VPs. "What is you need from us? How much? How often and when? They weren't closing....
I've read that in CA the state isn't letting farmers start in their fields. Umm... that's not going to end well. Michigan's governor just banned the sale of plant seeds as non-essential. Don't know what seeds are planted when, but there's a pretty narrow window for most veggies and food crops to be planted. And Michigan doesn't have a particularly long growing season. So if you've been harvesting your own veggies- you're SOL in MI this year.
But she hasn't banned the sale of the ver essential lottery ticket.
@Birkel,’
I suppose you are right about Haidtt. He is, he admits, on the left. I find it commendable that he seeks to expand the concept of orthodoxy.
Those of us on the right swim in the ocean of the left. With occasional sojourns in the tide pools of the right. (Have I swum with that metaphor as far as I can swim?). We can think bilingually, so to speak. Those on the left? Not at all. Which was my point about my friend being unable even to entertain the idea that someone else’s values might actually have...value.
At least Haidt is pushing his fellow travelers to expand their circles to include the “heterodox.”
Here we are just forcing hospitals into BK.
Well if plant the ticket in the ground that will work just as well right, facepalm with an old one!
It ain't bragging if you can do it. - Dizzy Dean
I get the cleverness of that quote but always thought it was still kind of dumb. You can only brag about things you can do (or have). Bragging about something you can't do or don't have is just lying.
That last link from a former bbc reporter, is about what happens when an intelligence source who was previously in the lao gai after tien anmen tries to contact western officials
@J Farmer,
It’s all cool. Thanks for the context.
I guess I was, in a way, suggesting that this unseemly panic is in part due to a lack of “religion.” Not really “religion.” But yes, “religion.”
It is maybe a subject for a different thread, and a less inflammatory context. What is the result of a loss of belief in a higher power, in something transcendent? Can materialism satisfy the human mind/intellect/soul? What is the source of a life-sustaining ethic when God is dismissed as irrelevant/imaginary...even a malignant concept?
I took a comparative literature course in college that focused on the decades of the world wars. The professor made quite an impression on me, as he described the existential shock of the means of extinction elevated in WWI. How humans responded to the administration of death that was orders of magnitude beyond their experience, and the intellectual paroxysm that ensured. I have obviously not forgotten that course.
I trace a thread of reactivity from that experience to what I see today with this virus. And I find it fascinating. Thus my speculation about what drives this panic about the Chinese virus...when patently, if we are going to panic about that, we should panic about just about everything. Life is full of danger.
This is such an interesting selection of comments, welcome Anne~you are hitting all the right notes.
@Anne:
We can think bilingually, so to speak. Those on the left? Not at all. Which was my point about my friend being unable even to entertain the idea that someone else’s values might actually have...value.
Mike Kinsley identified a similar phenomenon when he said: "Conservatives are always looking for converts, whereas liberals are always looking for heretics." I have gotten much more push back from the gay left for my views than from the religious right. And of course, the popular notion is that gays are all about diversity and open-mindedness and the religious right are close-minded bigots. Living in Florida, I played a very small role in the recount controversy by casting my vote for for Pat Buchanan.
I think one of the fundamental dividing lines is the question of inequality. That is, why do some people have so much and some people have so few. Broadly speaking, the left tends to explain it in terms of historical oppression, social injustice, and systemic impediments. The right tend to explain it in terms of personal choices such as effort in education, hard work, honesty, fidelity in marriage, etc. I think there is truth to each of these, but I tend to be much more aligned to the right.
The left tends to advocate social programs and changes in societal attitudes as solutions. The right tends to advocate personal responsibility and the ability to change one's circumstances through hard work (i.e. bootstraps). The problem I have with both solutions is that they assume a pretty high degree of malleability among humans. That through the application of interventions, either from society or ones own will, we have the capacity to change ourselves. I tend to have much less faith in the capacity and degree of change possible for people.
When you consider two important predictors of success in society--cognitive ability and personality--both tend to be relatively stable over time and notoriously difficult to change to a significant degree. when you also consider that the determinants of cognitive ability and personality are most probably genetic factors and early childhood experiences, both outside the control of the person, then how much can you say that the outcome of someone's life is their own responsibility. If someone has an IQ of 80, their job prospects are going to be severely limited, and it's not their fault.
The challenge, as I see it, is to figure out how to craft a society in which people who are limited in their abilities can nonetheless obtain the resources necessary to live a life of dignity. I have no clue what the answer is.
CStanley said Stay The Fuck Home. Did you run around with gloves and mask at the start of flu season, shouting at people? At some point you have to face the whole picture. Lots of ways to die out here. China and possibly Iran just loosed another. Unlike the Titanic, America doesn't have to sink, people will die.
@Crazy World,
Thank you. I appreciate that—and the comments of others who have welcomed me.
@ JFarmer @Birkel @Mark @whomever,
It just occurred to me. The controversy, to me is over this: the original precautionary measures were taken in order to relieve the immediate pressure on the health system. Only so many ICU beds, vents, physicians, etc. They were NOT undertaken to prevent the deaths of the vulnerable. Those are inevitable—short of magicking the virus away.
The accuasations of the KenBs and the Ingas against those of us who want to end the restrictions aren’t about releasing the pressure on the health care system. They are calling us murderers. They seem to think that the goal is to prevent anyone from becoming infected/going to the hospital/dying from the Chinese Bat Virus.
Such a goal is impossible. No serious person suggests that we can stop the spread of the infection, only that we can ease the pressure on our healthcare system.
And that is what those of us resisting are pushing back against—this absolutely idiotic idea that we must sacrifice everything to prevent those that are going to get this virus from getting it.
There. Glad that I saw the obvious. Going to bed.
Hmmmm...I live in Chicago, but grew up in West Michigan. For reasons that are obvious, the local reporting on the Covid-19 issue in Chicago has descended into into pure race-baiting. A virus is on the loose and blacks and latinos are the hardest hit. It must be racism! No consideration is being given to cultural norms, education levels, the presence of co-morbidities in various groups, etc. The coverage is vapid, but predictable in this city and state of cynical politicians.
By contrast, western lower Michigan and all of upper Michigan are very lightly touched by this disease (13 deaths in Grand Rapids and 7 in Kalamazoo are the largest aggregations west and north of Lansing), but residents are stuck with the mental burpings of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who had never had any executive experience before she was elected governor in 2018. I am sure that some folks here can explain to me why it is key to "out-state Michigan" (as it is called) that garden centers be closed, the clothing sections of Meijers and Walmart be closed off, vacation homes be off-limits, and power boats banned but not canoes. I suppose that Whitmer wants to be seen as the governor who has done the most, but some see her as the person least fit to head a state with the police power because she lacks both experience and good judgment.
In any case, many of her ukases are being ignored on the ground, but quietly. I think the level of civil disobedience will grow as April progresses.
@J Farmer,
Are you Charles Murray? Haha. I kid. Have you read “Human Diversity?” Murray makes that exact argument. We live in a world where intelligence (genetically determined) and personality (genetics and early childhood) determine success. What to do with people who have been dealt a losing hand? The Right is wrong in that they can’t just “pull themselves up.” The Left is wrong in that more money and more programs won’t change things. How do we create the opportunity for meaningful and dignified work and experience for people who aren’t “golden ticket holders” (as my non-existent sister (per Inga) and I call them).
A great topic for another evening!
Re Spain - local unemployment rate (effective) is unknown, given the confusion, but numbers in the area of 50% are being floated, or it would be in that ballpark if the lockdowns ended tomorrow.
Its clear that the national budget is a disaster. It wasn't in a good state before this. Its unclear how the state can refinance the economy to reopen shuttered businesses, as they are restricted by the Euro and the EU. In the old days they could just print pesetas.
Since so much of the economy depends on tourism a real recovery will also be driven by consumer psychology of people like - us. I don't know if I will be feeling spendy the day after the lockdown is over.
We did have a fairly spendy plan in the works, with a peripatetic lifestyle, barely started before these troubles began.
Anyway, we have watched "Ocho Apellidos" (Martinez-Lazaro) about eight times, as SOME of us need to practice dialects, lacking the opportunity to wander about.
Manila and environs are worse off, as that place is an order of magnitude poorer, and over there if they don't work they dont eat. I cannot see how a lockdown there can be tolerated much longer without food riots, in spite of widespread public and private relief efforts. This lockdown "cure", in such a place, is cruel beyond American imagination.
Well said Anne. Welcome aboard. Thanks for the perspective buwaya.
@Anne:
It is maybe a subject for a different thread, and a less inflammatory context. What is the result of a loss of belief in a higher power, in something transcendent? Can materialism satisfy the human mind/intellect/soul? What is the source of a life-sustaining ethic when God is dismissed as irrelevant/imaginary...even a malignant concept?
Those are all obviously huge questions. I never really had a faith that I abandoned. I was raised in a culturally Christian home, and my parents probably would have affirmed belief in god, but they were not religiously observant. I didn't start really thinking about it until I was a teenager. I went through a relatively brief New Age phase, but that was more an intellectual curiosity than anything I ever "practiced." Around 18 or 19, I started identifying as an atheist.
Essentially, it was the randomness of suffering and injustice and the varieties of religion over space and time that led me to the conclusion that no religions were true and likely had no origin outside of the human brain. I could perhaps go as far as deism and say that yes perhaps there is some kind of greater entity. However, the notion that such an entity is involved in human affairs, has an opinion on human affairs, and has made such an opinion known to humans is simply not something I can accept.
From my own experience and my experience with others, I think it is undoubtedly true that some people can live a content, meaningful, and ethical life without reference to the supernatural. However, I highly doubt that that is universal across humans. And so I think folks like Sam Harris and the later Christopher Hitchens foolish in their crusade for atheism. I find atheist conferences and "skeptic" organizations rather absurd. I generally have contempt for people who want to sue local municipalities to get crosses removed from old parks or public buildings. And I tend to think the socially conservative positions can be justified on their own merit without having to claim they were ordered by god.
Spain and Italy and possibly the UK are going to end up with a death rate similar to that of the New York metropolitan area. Money is definitely not a critical factor, compared to vastly more important "unknowns". The contagious parts of the lifestyles are similar. Public transit is ubiquitous, most people live in apartment buildings and there is a popular culture of gregarious nightlife.
Why do Austria, Portugal, Czechia, Poland, Croatia (and tons more) have such mild effects while their neighbors are burying thousands of victims?
And then there is the nagging problem of the third world, which seems near-immune to all this.
@Anne:
Are you Charles Murray? Haha. I kid. Have you read “Human Diversity?” Murray makes that exact argument
Actually I did recently finish it, but my position predates it. The Bell Curve was influential to me, along with my own career testing and evaluating people in a forensic setting. I identify with a kind of thinking that John O'Sullivan once labeled "evolutionary conservatism." Mu education and career has been in psychology, and as best as I've been able to understand human nature, I think the conservatives have the far better case than the liberals.
Liberals, who ironically consider themselves the "party of science" and deride conservatives who don't believe in evolution, tend to have strong beliefs in egalitarianism and are wedded to explaining differences in terms of social deprivation. Conservatives, on the other hand, are often reluctant to see the brain as a product of Darwinian processes.
More complicating, optimism in the ability of one to improve their station through hard work is a pretty central notion in American society. A politician would have a hard time mounting a campaign such an idea. It may even be that while it is true humans are limited in their ability to change, we have to pretend like it is true. I see no clear path forward and am generally quite pessimistic.
@Anne
Enjoyed your insight. Hope to hear more from you.
@J. Farmer
I snarked about your sanctimony last night and I still believe it, but you are obviously smart, well read and articulate. I just wish you would use your powers for good the way you did in earlier times. I still learn a lot from you.
Federal Court Prohibits Louisville Mayor from Banning Easter Sunday Drive-in Church Service
Trump appointee. Brilliant reasoning.
Birkel: "Drago mentions abortion.
Royal ass Inga (Anne, Royal ass Inga asked me to call her that.)
"People are discussing life and death here, not your stupid incessant political grievances."
Let that marinate."
Indeed.
The truly sad part? Even after you point it out, Inga still won't get it.
I should clarify, he has been nominated by Trump for the D.C. Circuit.
Inga: "Oh poor Drago, did Anne slap you down a little bit, just when you thought you were being helpful to her?"
Since that didn't really happen, I don't know how to answer your hypothetical.
Did someone hand you another hoax dossier?
heyboom: "Trump appointee. Brilliant reasoning."
Unsurprisingly, NeverTrump is all over this decision and lamenting the Judges reasoning....all the while pretending to agree with the actual ruling itself, which they clearly don't.
The usual crew, David French et al.
To coin a phrase from a well-known philosopher:
Unexpectedly. LOL
J. Farmer, Anne, have you seen any of the ed research on growth mindset? While the vast majority of ed research is absolute garbage, the growth mindset stuff is intriguing to me. All students (or nearly all) will admit that they will do better academically if they study, that is, if they try. Yet the vast majority don’t, and they admit that, too! It’s so weird to me, but by the time most kids grow up any chance of growth mindset has been long buried, and this I believe is another contributing factor to inequality, along with genetics and early childhood care.
The research is borne out in my own classrooms. After 10 years I still struggle with teaching students to learn that they can learn better, if they just try. That’s the main reason I accept late work and have an insanely generous re-do policy...I’m sneakily getting them to keep trying... works for some, not for all.
Lefties continue to be very afraid HCQ can help people.
COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move
Summary thus far: Washington (Kirkland) nursing home: No hydroxychloroquine, 35 deaths out of 120 residents. Texas nursing home: Treatment WITH hydroxychloroquine, 1 death out of 135 residents.
Remember, lefties want to end the use of HCQ....because they are "very" concerned about its effects.....
Yeah, like it might be working and would help to end the crisis of which the left wants to take advantage.
I like this Anne.
As Biden might say, she has moxie.
He might also say she has spunk, but that word makes me uncomfortable outside the context of bukkake parties.
I am Laslo.
I am trapped.
You are trapped
We are all trapped
Can’t even recall the last time I crapped
A can of chili beckons from its shelf
It whispers to me
Looking as lonely as myself
“Where in hell is everybody?”
It goes on as if on cue
Relieve yourself my friend
I’ll squirt right through you
Like a brown watery fiend
Thank to Jobs’s technology
I’m fighting the fucking virus
Not with raw physiology
But with my brand new wireless
My iPhone 11 Pro Max
Lets me keep in touch
It soothes and helps me relax
A very handy little crutch
I love Facetime and Lisa’s face
And texting random brain farts
From its Midnight Green case
A testament to the design arts
Now I tap some joyful singing
Me swaying behind my bars
Her voice is like a bell ringing
From somewhere among the stars
https://tinyurl.com/vslas9v
@heyboom:
I snarked about your sanctimony last night and I still believe it, but you are obviously smart, well read and articulate. I just wish you would use your powers for good the way you did in earlier times. I still learn a lot from you.
Thank you for the kind words. I am not entirely sure which "earlier times" you are referring to, but if you have noticed an appreciable change in my tone or approach, it has not been the result of any conscious decision on my part to be different. My intention here has always remained the same: to say what I think and why I think it. I certainly make no claims to moral superiority and will gladly concede that I have flaws like many others. I can be strident and preachy and act like a know-it-all.
That said, it takes two to tango. I am not a fan of situations where groups of like minded get together and all talk about how stupid or evil the other side is. For one, I find it gets pretty boring pretty fast. For another, I think it is generally more useful to criticize your own side rather than the other side.
I also think there is far too much obsession with personality and process here. Far too often I will write a comment, and the responses will all be some version of telling me that I am dumb, that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I have sinister motives, that I'm smug, that I'm sanctimonious, that I am not an honest broker, that I am jealous, etc. etc. etc. In other words, people read my comment and immediately start looking for what my comment supposedly reveals about my character. I can give a dozen examples from just the last few days. There are quite a few in this thread alone.
That is not a particularly useful way of discussing differences. Whatever point I was attempting to made immediately becomes sidelined in favor of arguing over whether or not I am guilty of whatever I've been accused of. I find that exceptionally tedious. Since a lot of such charges have to do with the content of my mind, there is no way to really refute them beyond simply denying them. But more importantly, they are completely beside the point. If I make a claim about something, that claim is not refuted because I am smug. Or sanctimonious.
If someone thinks my opinions are that ill informed and not worth consideration, then they should simply ignore them. I can't count the amount of times I have had someone write multiple comments towards me in a single thread, all saying that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I am not worth engaging. Just the other day, I was commenting about how I find the phrase "Happy Good Friday." In response, I got multiple comments telling me that I know nothing about Christianity and that I am not a practicing Christian. And yet, despite my repeated requests, neither of them actually identified what claim I made that they took issue with. As best I could tell, their only objection was that they didn't like what I said.
At the risk of descending into self-pity, I think I'll leave it there.
Happy Easter! Christ is risen!
"The number of deaths per month is relatively stable, year to year. Counting excess deaths is amazingly straightforward, “ - Birkel
It is, and excess deaths in NYC currently tower over the deaths from 911.
buwaya! Nice to see your handle again!
"Remember, dear readers, that people who advocate a policy position intend all of the natural and foreseeable consequences of that policy.” - Birkel
This is why arguing with Birkel is a fool’s errand. The other day he was taking exactly the opposite position and disavowing any moral responsibility for the excess deaths his chosen policy would clearly entail, as they have where they have been tried in Sweden. In Sweden you get all of the bad in terms of early death, and none of the good, in terms of avoiding economic damage.
"So all the "shut it down" people need to acknowledge that they are trading some lives for others. “
So you think that if we let the pandemic rage and never shutdown, health care was going to be more available? What is your plan? To keep all of the Wuhan patients away from the health care system? Those deaths are coming for sure though. Not sure that anybody has shut down dermatologists offices. If they have, that’s on the governor of that state.
Maybe my point of view comes from the fact that "commie Vermont" isn’t all that shut down. No police enforcement, no prohibitions on going for a ride. There are pickups parked at the boat launches where guys are out for some early season salmon fishing. I read about Michigan and what I read is crazy. I went to the hardware store yesterday and got what I needed dropped at the curb for me. Being at risk, I have to take those kinds of precautions. There were a few people taking their chances going inside. Young people helping out and I suspect collecting fat tips, I know I tipped fat, but I always do.
Only an idiot doesn’t believe that this will flare up again as soon as restrictions are lifted. The end is not “in sight,” it’s inevitable that hotspots will develop, and a certain amount of fatalism is called for. We have to do it anyway. What’s delusional is the idea that we could have just let it burn when we were in no way ready for it.
As for Birkel’s taunts, time will tell, won’t it? Can we agree on that?
Joy to the world, Ann. Terrific cycling. Nice tracking camera Meade.
"Disconcerting" Why is that? Because it seems to work? Attacking usage of a drug therapy that works but hasn't been vetted through 18 months of government clinical trials, we can't have that.
Seeing that this attack on Trump is failing, the NYT pivots: "Top News: He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus."
This line of attack will fail as well. Why? Because it simply isn't true, and there would have been pressure to advise social distancing and lockdown anyway.
Also in the NYT: "Nearly 2000 Dead as Coronavirus Ravages Nursing Homes in N.Y. Region".
J. Farmer said,
"The challenge, as I see it, is to figure out how to craft a society in which people who are limited in their abilities can nonetheless obtain the resources necessary to live a life of dignity."
Yes, that's really very good.
buyawa, I am so glad to see you here.
I have missed your comments.
tim in vermont:
So you're saying NYC is bad? And maybe a few other big cities?
And the rest of the country not so much?
I learn something new every day. Why have you hidden this insight?
buwaya offers insight but too few here are willing to understand. I've been writing for weeks that the ROW is going to starve in a depression. And here we have somebody confirming that obvious point with experience. And still people refuse to see what is coming.
I have to say, anybody who believes this can keep up for very much longer has no grasp of reality.
Events dear boy. Events.
Taunts?
I am fucking worried about real food shortages and rioting. I am worried about collapse in the credit markets. I am worried about truckers who will not haul loads for free.
Get your fucking head out of your own ass.
Good to see you, buwaya.
Happy Easter, everyone!
How do we create the opportunity for meaningful and dignified work and experience for people who aren’t “golden ticket holders”
Capitalism creates opportunity. Donald Trumps economy is a good start.
Post a Comment