May 15, 2020
"As restrictions ease in Louisiana, a restaurant owner in Baton Rouge talks about how the pandemic has affected her business and why the decision to reopen isn’t an easy one."
The NYT "Daily" podcast has a fantastic interview today with a restaurant owner. Her story and her way of telling it are so compelling. The detail is personal, her reasons for needing to open and to stay closed are agonizingly balanced. Please do yourself a favor and listen, even if only to the first few minutes about how she, a dental hygienist at the time, met her husband, a chef.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
29 comments:
No thanks. Many of us already know people like that. Stopped at a small restaurant recently reopened in Hickman County (TN) last Saturday for lunch. Waitress was a single mother of two and also helping to raise a grand baby. She lost all three of her part time jobs on the same day in March. Hickman County has had a grand total of 53 cases and NO deaths.
“Personal reasons” she and her patrons could have worked out without ascientific politicians and unelected “public health” officials making mandates.
-XC
"When did you first start to notice the pandemic was impacting the restaurant?"
"the governor shut down the state"
Rick T. - I had dinner a couple nights ago in Bonifay Florida on the FL panhandle near the Alabama border. Holmes County, of which Bonifay is the county seat has had 10 cases with no hospitalizations and no deaths. Not exactly Miami-Dade, much less NYC.
Heartbreaking.
19 reported fatalities in a population of 220,000 in Baton Rouge.
And the reporting is highly suspect. Might be half that number of fatalities.
If you’re not willing to accept 10 to 20 fatalities in a population of 220,000 in a viral epidemic, and continue life and business in the ordinary course, you don’t believe in freedom.
"Can you give us a sense of where your daughters have been throughout this period...at what point was there schooling interrupted?"
"School closed in March"
Two months in and they're getting around to putting a human face to the millions rocked by unemployment and shuttered businesses.
Maybe they are discovering that they are making people realize exactly what the comfortable think of them: deplorable, unnecessary, nuisances.
Not that that really matters to them, of course, except if those people now consider voting for Trump.
You can't have the trendy restauranteurs realize they are of temporary value: it upsets the organic apple cart.
I am Laslo.
My daughter's company just went through a massive layoff. She is still employed only because her group works on a government contract and the company is still getting paid. Four of her close friends lost their jobs. My daughter is heartbroken.
When you listen to Governors like Murphy in NJ and Wolf in PA, you can tell that they have no compassion for people like this. They are too busy "saving lives". Murphy says that his mission is to save "every last life that I can".
A fools errand.
I'm sure it is compelling. Althouse is very good about finding compelling stories.
But I don't need to listen. I'm living through it. Not in a restaurant, but as a yoga teacher. I think my studio owner is going to make it through, but he is trying to figure out how long things will be restricted, and how people will dare or not dare to come into a yoga studio. Reduced class sizes, fewer classes so there's time for people to get into the class without congregating in the lobby, cleaning between classes. All of that is reduced income for him (and me!). You can't wear masks while practicing yoga. This is his life's work and he and his family are supported by the business.
I cannot handle the way that NYTimes person talks on the recording.
I cannot handle the way that NYTimes person talks on the recording.
I often wonder how many of the men who write for the NYT grew up with a father in the house.
"What “excesses” of the lockdown? "
We ventured out for the first time for dinner last night to our local restaurant row. Several places with outdoor seating. People at tables and a few with takeout they walked over to blankets and lawn chairs to a green. Live music a few places. It felt kind of normal but it was strange to see humans act like humans and a more than a little sad to feel how much we've lost and are going to lose.
The problem with compelling stories like this, is that it is trying to get to to think with your heart and not your mind. As the leftists like to call republicans and conservatives heartless (with no sense of irony), having sympathy or empathy for a person or people in a situation doesn’t pay the bills or feed the family.
The reality is that we do empathize - most ‘heartless conservatives’ have been there, and tend to want to solve the situation by addressing the problem and not having a kumbyah session.
Jersey Fled said..."A fools errand."
This is becoming evident as the diagnosis of other serious maladies has been delayed and soon the stories of untreated cancers will be reported on the news.
"agonizingly balanced"
Special situation: she says one of her kids is immunocompromised, so she personally needs to be cautious. Fine.
But the general premise makes no sense: someone might spread the virus! it's so scary! For most people, it isn't. "Stopping" the virus is pointless.
Business owners are obviously within their rights not to reopen, but then they should forfeit any further taxpayer support. Nor should governments impose any general restrictions on businesses or the public in general. The public health challenge was to avoid overwhelming health care. That's done. The rest is up to the public, leaving aside the very sick and seniors in nursing homes.
Made me cry, it did. Thanks NY Times.
MayBee: "I think my studio owner is going to make it through, but he is trying to figure out how long things will be restricted, and how people will dare or not dare to come into a yoga studio. Reduced class sizes, fewer classes so there's time for people to get into the class without congregating in the lobby, cleaning between classes."
This is why we need a vaccine to deal with the insanity epidemic. Healthy yoga clients under 50 run no extraordinary risks. Whether cleaning between classes has any impact on anything is doubtful. Now that there's no major public health challenge for government to worry about, there is no justification for "things" to be "restricted."
I wonder if anyone is tracking the growth of deaths due to the lock down. Is it growing "exponentially"? Can we save just one of those lives? Don't we have to do something? What do the experts say? Is there a model?
"I don't even want to be me right now." -- Jasmine Lombrage, a restaurant owner in Baton Rouge, La.
It's the difference between people out there who took a risk with what little they have in the belief they could better their own lives and the lives of those around them. In contrast with those who live insulated from such risk, including those who control their fate and those do will never know what that really means:
Hosted by Michael Barbaro. Produced by Clare Toeniskoetter, Daniel Guillemette and Annie Brown, and edited by Liz Baylen and Larissa Anderson. “The Daily” is made by Theo Balcomb, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Annie Brown, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, Adizah Eghan, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, M.J. Davis Lin, Austin Mitchell, Sayre Quevedo, Neena Pathak, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Guillemette, Hans Buetow, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Bianca Giaever and Asthaa Chaturvedi. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.
Unfortunately, all too often the answers purveyed by the those in media and government who are insulated from such risk is to denigrate those choices -- certainly not here to their face, but in the abstract -- whether it's having taken a business risk employing other people, or having the faith to bring a 1lb 3oz child into the world.
Men real men work a 10-12 hours a day in the hot sun wearing n95 masks but it's impossible to wear a mask for the rigors of an hour yoga class. you could incorporate the post class cleanup as part of the spiritual enlightenment of the yoga experience as well. But you people aren't interested in workable solutions because if you came up with a workable solution you wouldn't be able to constantly bitching complain and belly ache and whine and cry
Howard you are babbling again. Also, you should defer to Inga before using her "you people" phrase. Over and out.
Thanks for sharing this. Lovely interview.
I learned yoga back in the mid 90s at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.
The New York Giants attended specialized yoga classes at Chelsea Piers.
I guess they were really just pansies.
The workable solution is to chuck this panic completely, since it's a Democratic Party scheme to sabotage the economy, and go about life without fear.
Like real men, you know.
https://disrn.com/news/co-man-dies-from-astounding-055-blood-alcohol-level-coronavirus-listed-as-cause-of-death
Did somebody say the Winnie Xi Flu stats were unreliable?
Face masks in the literature:
https://www.technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/
I am sorry this is happening to you, Howard.
Business owners are obviously within their rights not to reopen, but then they should forfeit any further taxpayer support.
I think about this with the "we should get to stay home and keep our kids home from school and get unemployment until we feel safe" crowd. At what point do we return to an expectation that you have to participate in society and commerce? Can we return to that point?
Post a Comment