"So we have created a scenario which has mercifully slowed the virus’s spread, but, as we are now discovering, at the cost..."

"... of a potentially greater depression than in the 1930s, with no assurance of any progress yet visible. If we keep this up for six months, we could well keep the deaths relatively low and stable, but the economy would all but disintegrate. Just because Trump has argued that the cure could be worse than the disease doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially true. The previously unimaginable levels of unemployment and the massive debt-fueled outlays to lessen the blow simply cannot continue indefinitely. We have already, in just two months, wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession. In six months? The wreckage boggles the mind. All of this is why, [on] some days, I can barely get out of bed. It is why protests against our total shutdown, while puny now, will doubtless grow. The psychological damage — not counting the physical toll — caused by this deeply unnatural way of life is going to intensify.... Damon Linker put it beautifully this week: 'A life without forward momentum is to a considerable extent a life without purpose — or at least the kind of purpose that lifts our spirits and enlivens our steps as we traverse time. Without the momentum and purpose, we flounder. A present without a future is a life that feels less worth living, because it’s a life haunted by a shadow of futility.'... We keep postponing herd immunity, if such a thing is even possible with this virus. A massive testing, tracing, and quarantining regime seems beyond the capacity of our federal government in the foreseeable future... [S]ometimes the only way past something is through it."

Writes Andrew Sullivan in "We Can’t Go on Like This Much Longer" (New York Magazine).

ADDED: Damon Linker may "put it beautifully," but to write  "Without the momentum and purpose, we flounder" is to be on the wrong side of the flounder/founder distinction.

"Flounder" is a fish, and the verb means to struggle, and that takes some "momentum and purpose." To "founder" is to collapse, to fall helplessly to the ground... without momentum.

Movies that begin with a person entering a particular place and end with him leaving.

Help me think of examples of this sequence:

In the first scene, a man (could be a woman) approaches the place (maybe a town). Then, there are many scenes of various people he encounters there and problems that arise. Doesn't matter what. The important thing is the final scene: He's walking away from the place. Could be driving or riding a horse. That's not what matters. What matters is that the only resolution of the story is just that the guy who approached this place is now leaving the place. Nothing about where he's going or what he plans to do next or how he's tied things up or any of that. The resolution is just that he's putting that place behind him.

I saw a movie like that last night. It's a fairly obscure movie, so I'm not going to mention it or encourage you to guess. What I want is to hear about other movies that fit that pattern. Please try to avoid talking about movies that don't fit that pattern.

Also, do you like stories like that? Assuming the things that happen in the place are interesting to watch, are you okay with endings that just have the guy walking out of the town?

ADDED: Here's the movie we watched:



We have big windows behind the TV and, at one point, we saw an owl fly up and land in the tree. We paused and made our own tiny movie. Visually, it's mostly darkness, but you can hear the bird's charming 8-note tune:



The David Sedaris story on which the movie is based is not the one with "owl" in the title. It's "Naked."

"Both waiters and customers wear masks. Diners can remove them to eat and drink..."

"... tucking them safely into an envelope the restaurant provides. Every surface is sanitized every half-hour. Customers have accepted the protocols, [one restaurateur] said. They’ve had to turn away only one for having a slight fever, and sent off a grumpy party of six that wanted to sit together. 'People are honestly much more understanding about everything now,' she said. 'They’re grateful they can go out and feel comfortable.... If you’ve managed to build a brand and built and cultivated integrity, people will trust you when you are allowed to open the door again.'... Is the urge to sit in a restaurant so great that customers will endure an experience that is more like a trip to the dental hygienist? Will they risk infection, even in a place with the safest protocols?... 'At the end of the day, we’re problem solvers and we will find a way to do this,' [said another restaurateur]. 'The restaurant industry is about constant chaos and writing a ballet out of that chaos. We’ve spent all of our careers preparing for this moment.'"

From "Safe Dining? Hard to Imagine, but Many Restaurants Are Trying/Though widespread reopenings may be a long way off, chefs and health officials have begun studying how a post-pandemic restaurant might look" (NYT).

Health has always been something restaurants have had to worry about getting right. Whenever we've gone to a restaurant, we've trusted the place not to damage our health. They make substances in the back room that we inject* into our body. The servers go to the bathroom and we've been trusting that they wash their hands thoroughly. We're more alert now and paying attention. There's a specific new danger on the list of things that could find their way into your body from a restaurant.

Restaurants get to earn our trust all over again, and we get to think carefully about how much we're going to put our lives in their (presumably washed) hands. Some of us, I think, have developed stronger feelings about how much restaurants mean to us, and others are more wary than ever about the agents of disease that lurk there. We all change and adapt. I'd like to think that makes us better and stronger.

___________________

* I'm just needling you. "Inject" means "To drive or force (a fluid, etc.) into a passage or cavity, as by means of a syringe, or by some impulsive power; said esp. of the introduction of medicines or other preparations into the cavities or tissues of the body" (OED). I don't really think "inject" is an accurate way to describe eating (unless it's something like the way geese eat in the production of foie gras).

BUT: Etymologically, the original meaning of "inject" is to throw in. We do speak of throwing back a few drinks.

AND: We do speak of injecting a little humor. We might say that Trump was injecting a little humor when he (lyingly) claimed to have been using sarcasm when words ejected from him that seemed to suggest that disinfectant of the sort that you'd use to wipe down a tabletop could be injected into the human body.

"Density alone doesn’t seem to account for the scale of the differential between New York’s fatality rates and those of other cities."

"New York has twice the density of London but three times the deaths, and the differential is even higher [comparing NYC to] cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Deaths have occurred disproportionately in poorer areas, where the incidence of long untreated morbidities such as heart disease and diabetes have contributed significantly. But the same is true in all other cities. The high dependence on mass transit also seems to be a factor. In other major cities, car commutes are much more common. As Joel Kotkin, a scholar of cities at Chapman University in California, says, it may be the lethal convergence of all three factors. 'If you put together density, levels of poverty and reliance on a mass-transit system, you have a hat trick,' he told me.… But even that may not explain the extent of New York’s unique catastrophe. Around the world, the highest death rates have occurred where hospital systems were overwhelmed in the early stages of the crisis. This is especially true in northern Italy. Anecdotally, at least, it seems that the same happened in New York: Large numbers of sick people never got to hospitals, arrived too late or, in the impossible circumstances that medical personnel were confronted with, were given ineffective treatment.… It will be a while before we get a proper understanding of what went so tragically wrong...."

From "The Covid-19 Catastrophe Unfolding in New York Is Unique" (Wall Street Journal), quoted at my son John's Facebook page.

John writes:

I'm not sure this is a logical argument:

"Density alone doesn’t seem to account for the scale of the differential between New York’s fatality rates and those of other cities. New York has twice the density of London but three times the deaths, and the differential is even higher for cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles."

Doesn't that assume there's a linear relationship between density and infection rates, and isn't that not necessarily the case?

My question is about the comparison of New York to northern Italy, where hospitals were overrun. Were NY hospitals overrun? I thought they weren't.  I think the 3 factors named — density, reliance on mass-transit, and the bad health conditions represented by the term "poverty" — are enough to explain what happened. These things are interactive. Shouldn't we talk about Bayes theorem?

A great Anthony Fauci impersonation by Brad Pitt (on "Saturday Night Live" last night).

Who knew Brad Pitt could do impersonations? Some good satirizing of Trump rhetoric, as "Fauci" explains what Trump is really trying to say:

A day after his inflammatory, incoherent disinfectant-injection remarks, Trump announces that his long press briefings are not worth his time and effort.

What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2020

"The conventional wisdom is that a woman could never ascend to the leadership of North Korea... [a] toxic mix of Confucianism and totalitarianism indentures women to their husbands, to their in-laws, and..."

"... ultimately, to a male-dominated regime.... Since 1948, North Korea has been ruled by three men—the founder, his son, and his grandson—but, nevertheless, it is now conceivable that the fourth man will be a woman. That is because, with reports that Kim Jong Un is in failing health, the most obvious successor is his thirtysomething sister, Kim Yo Jong.... Last week, CNN reported that he was in 'grave danger,' after having undergone surgery (an assertion echoed by a report from a Japanese magazine on Saturday that claimed he was brain dead after a failed operation to insert a stent).... Kim Yo Jong is the youngest known grandchild of Kim Il Sung, carrying what North Koreans revere as a pure bloodline that originated on Mount Paektu, a volcano on the border with China, which is the mythical birthplace of the Korean people. She was reportedly a favorite of her father, Kim Jong Il, who ruled from 1994 until his death, in 2011, [who, it is reported] praised the intelligence of his daughter, while deriding his sons as 'idle blockheads.'...  Among the adult males in the family, Kim Pyong Il, a half brother of Kim Jong Il, spent three decades posted in Europe as a diplomat in semi-exile.... Jong Un’s older brother, Kim Jong Chol, best known as a rock-and-roll groupie who once tried to invite Eric Clapton to Pyongyang, is reported to have even more serious health issues, and was dismissed by his own father as being 'too girly' for consideration in the succession."

From "In North Korea, the Fourth Man Could Be a Woman" by Barbara Demick (The New Yorker).

The article quotes Katharine H. S. Moon, a political-science professor at Wellesley College: "North Korea is so outlandishly sexist, despite the fact that they are supposed to be a revolutionary society."

I just have 2 things to say about that:

1. Hypothesis: An outlandishly sexist culture has a bigger problem with a man who is "girly" than with a woman who looks and acts in a way that you wouldn't call "girly." (The article quotes the Washington Post describing Kim Yo Jong — at the South Korea Olympics — as wearing "barely-there makeup," a "lack of bling," "plain black outfits," carrying a "simple purse," and clipping "her hair back in a no-nonsense style.")

2. The New Yorker expects us to accept as a given that a real "revolutionary society" — in contrast to a "supposed" one — will have overcome sexism, at least the outlandish kind. Don't blame the revolution for anything that's wrong with the revolution! Oh, it's just something Professor Moon said. In quotes. Don't pin it on The New Yorker...

"A feared spike in Wisconsin’s coronavirus infection rate following its April 7 in-person presidential primary never materialized..."

"... although some new cases of the virus were possibly linked to the election, according to a report. A team of doctors from Wisconsin and Florida plus a mathematician in Alabama examined data from the post-election period of April 12-21, meaning five to 14 days after election, when new cases of the virus from April 7 likely would have become apparent.... Prior to the election, Wisconsin’s coronavirus infection rate was about one-third of the rate for the entire U.S. and dropped even lower compared to the U.S. after the election...."

Fox News reports.

Perhaps Governor Evers can take this as cue that we're pretty good at getting out and about with precautions and can handle a moderate reopening. (I see that Minnesota is reopening on May 1.)

ADDED: The total number of coronavirus cases in Wisconsin is 5,687 (with 2,525 of that in one place, Milwaukee). The number who have been tested is 62,825. I think Milwaukee should be treated differently from the rest of the state, but there must be strong political pressure to use one approach for the entire state. There's pressure in the other direction too. Here's a picture I took on Friday, showing signs denouncing Evers as a tyrant:



Click to enlarge the photograph. There are a bunch of signs that say (sarcastically), "ALL HAIL THE EMPEROR." There's a man with a pirate hat and flag holding a sign that says, "Throw Evers overboard." There's a woman with a sign that says, "You peasants better have the King's permission to be outside."

More moderately, there's a woman — the one person wearing a mask — with a sign that says: "You asked us to flatten the curve. We did. Now OPEN Wisconsin."

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk all night.

That's how the sky looked at 6:04 this morning. The actual sunrise time was 5:59. It was the first day this year when the sun rose before 6. We're in the part of the year where the sunlight proportion of the day increases quickly — almost 3 more minutes each day. But how early does the sunrise get? The earliest is 5:17. That will happen on June 10 through June 19. The daily change in the light is only a few seconds that close to the solstice. I started my running for the sunrise on September 9th last year, when the sunrise came at 6:31, which was also the sunrise time on April 5th. So since April 5th, each day has been the earliest day I've gone out for the run. What makes it a little challenging is that the sunset is so late. I had no trouble getting up before 5 in the dark months, when the sun sets before 5. It's much harder in the light months, when the sun sets at 8 and even later. The latest it gets is 8:41. And twilight isn't over until 9:16. To get 7 hours of sleep and make it out in time for a 5:17 sunrise, you have to get to sleep a half hour after twilight. That's a bit rigorous!

"Taking a different approach to other nations contravenes jantelagen, the Scandinavian societal rule that forbids sticking your neck out or being noticeably ambitious."

"'If this succeeds, the first casualty will be jantelagen,' Annie said. 'We’ll be so pleased with ourselves.' Yet as the death toll rises, a significant number of people believe Sweden may have made a fatal error of judgment.... The state claims that the curve of infections has flattened. But as the weather warms up there are fears that the numbers will rise sharply if partygoers ignore the rules. For Plan B and other venues, their future livelihood may depend on their ability to enforce social distancing while still holding public events. 'I hope they don’t impose more rules,' said Ellen. 'Otherwise the summer could be ruined.'"

From "Sweden: the young dance at a distance amid growing fears about fatal coronavirus misstep/In a world on lockdown, the country has so far refused to introduce harsh public restrictions" (in The London Times).

Jantelagen — I'd never heard of that! It means the Law of Jante. Jante is the name of a fictionalized town in a novel by Aksel Sandemose called "A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks." Sandemose — who was was Dano-Norwegian — was satirizing the culture of Nordic countries. Sandemose identified 10 rules these people were following:

"The coronavirus has been brutal for people with Fitbits, particularly those of us who might have been branded at one time or other as 'compulsive' or, worse still, 'crazy.'"

"I have a perfect record step-wise, and am not about to break it for a raging pandemic. I can’t! If I’m out after midnight when the streets are deserted, I fail to see how I’m hurting anyone. It’s definitely creepy though, the emptiness. If I were driving through the city, looking for someone to rob, I’d definitely choose myself — who wouldn’t? I’m small. I’m alone. I’m maybe fast for a 63-year-old but that’s not saying much. A loris in a full body cast is fast for a 63-year-old. That’s why I decided a few weeks back to leave my wallet at home, and just take a twenty. That way I can be robbed, but not of my hard-to-replace identity card with a picture of a weary tortoise on it."

From "I sneak outside to a New York in which I am the only person" by David Sedaris in the London Times. When did David Sedaris move to New York City? Last I looked, he was somewhere in England.

Anyway, I wanted to read this so much that I subscribed to the London Times — just for this one thing. Now, I'm exploring the London Times, and it's going to be one of my regular stops.

Get ready to see this blog highlighting things like "guzzling biccies as we gawp at teddies." What does it mean??

During this time of unprecedented national angst, Britons are seeking comfort in a television show about broken teddy bears....

As for "biccies" — I guessed what that might mean, and then I looked it up, and I was right: cookies!

[I]t now appears socially acceptable for “wine o’clock” — or cocktail hour — to begin whenever the television is switched on.

Noted.

"Though the Intercept story doesn’t confirm that the Larry King caller was indeed Reade’s mother, some biographical details do match up."

"The caller and Reade’s mother, who died in 2016, lived in San Luis Obispo County in August 1993, and Reade would have just left Biden’s office around the time of the call. Reade told the Intercept in previous interviews that her mother had called into the Larry King Show, though she couldn’t recall the date...."

From "New Evidence Suggests Tara Reade’s Mother Knew of Allegations in 1993" (New York Magazine).

Here's the Intercept article.

Video:

Tara Reade told me this is her mother's voice. https://t.co/7ymN6Pj55m

— Holly Otterbein (@hollyotterbein) April 24, 2020

"But I get tired of my role as the initiator. So then I go quiet, sometimes for many weeks, and … don't hear from some of my friends..."

"... then miss them, want to see them, and … I cave, and initiate coffee, drinks at my house, or a walk. Nearly always my overtures are reciprocated; I believe they are genuinely glad to hear from me... Even though I am a happily married woman with (not small) children, I may simply crave more friend time than my peer group. Or maybe I just go after what I want or need, not a bad thing... Do I just suck it up and accept that I'm the initiator?"

A question to the advice columnist at WaPo. The questioner never considers the possibility that these other people don't want to spend time with her, but they don't have the nerve to say "no" when asked, and they don't understand why she never gets a hint. The advice columnist — Carolyn Hax — also excludes this possibility.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if I were in that situation and had gone through multiple sequences of waiting for reciprocation and initiating again, I would interpret it to mean that the friend wasn't really a friend and let go. I wouldn't continue to "believe they are genuinely glad to hear from me."

ADDED: I see I used "reciprocation" in a different way from the letter writer, who said, "Nearly always my overtures are reciprocated." She meant only that her invitations were accepted. I'm using reciprocation to mean that on another occasion the other person take the initiative and makes an invitation. If you invite me to a dinner party, I'm not reciprocating by attending. I have to do my own dinner party and invite you. Big difference.

"But Friday’s unusually succinct update came a day after Trump ignited another controversy for suggesting that doctors should determine whether an 'injection' of household disinfectants..."

"... such as bleach and isopropyl alcohol, could be used to kill Covid-19 in humans who contract the virus. Trump later claimed he was 'asking a question sarcastically… about disinfectant on the inside.'... Trump has been so eager to deliver good news to the American public, according to a senior administration official, that some White House staffers have presented their boss with upbeat findings that have yet to be vetted.... In an exchange on Thursday, Trump cited 'a very nice rumor' that heat and sunlight can kill the novel coronavirus. At previous briefings, he has also hyped the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential promising treatment even though its effectiveness against Covid-19 remains inconclusive. Recently, several White House aides began urging the president to make the briefings far shorter and to only approach the podium to deliver announcements or tout victories, while leaving the technical aspects to the numerous health officials who typically join him at the dais.... Trump has resisted such advice for weeks, viewing the daily briefings as an ideal venue for him to connect with his supporters and perform his favorite tricks. In the absence of campaign rallies or other outlets for his message, Trump has used the briefings to needle his political opponents, smack reporters and air grievances.... Even after campaign aides briefed him on a series of unsettling polls about his appearances, Trump continued making the case privately that his sky-high television ratings would help him trounce Biden in November...."

From "Trump grapples with a surprise threat: Too much Trump/Some allies worry the president is damaging his reelection prospects with his dominance of the briefing room during a public health and economic crisis" (Politico).

Perform his favorite tricks.... like sarcasm?

Claiming something is sarcasm when it didn't much strike anybody as sarcasm seems to be a new trick, and I don't think he should be practicing it in front of a gigantic audience of hundreds of millions of people — especially people who are struggling through something serious and hoping for something to feel hopeful about. Even if he'd practiced that particular sarcastic move in small clubs for years and honed the wording and delivery, I don't think it would ever have been right for the White House stage. And I appreciate Trump's spontaneity and rhetoric. You can see that in my posts over the last few years. But not everything works, and sarcasm is a bad choice in the Task Force briefing context. It mixes false statements in with the truth, but you're supposed to get it, because it's  funny. Fortunately, the move backfires.

And that's assuming it he was telling the truth when he called it sarcasm, which I don't think he was. But assuming... Let's assume that when he said, "I see the disinfectant... is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside... it’d be interesting to check that so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me," he could have leaned more heavily into the sarcasm and said "I see the disinfectant kills the virus, so why don't we just inject the disinfection right into the patient?! That sounds like it just might work! How about all you doctors get on my brilliant idea right away and divert resources into experiments?! I'm sure some of these crazy reporters would love to volunteer to have Clorox injected right into them. Come on, you paragons of ethics, roll up your sleeves." Then we'd all see the sarcasm. So is that what Trump meant to do, but in a subtler style?

I don't believe it, but as I said, it backfires. Trump isn't the only one who gets to use humor. Social media blew up with jokes about Trump and the injected disinfectant. And then he drastically shortened the next press briefing. It wasn't so fun anymore. I'm glad that check on his power worked. Freedom of speech is not just for Presidents. And humor coming from a person wielding immense power — taking advantage of a captive audience — is problematic. I think Trump is a fantastic standup comedian. I enjoy his performances. But some jokes fail.

And some things that are not jokes get called jokes after the fact, which is what I think happened here. Trump undercuts his own reputation as a humorist when he labels one of his non-humor statements as humor. So why did he do that? Desperation? I told you yesterday how I thought he'd try to deal with disinfectant-injectiongate.

1. He'll say it's "fake news"... They said I recommended injecting bleach.... Who would say that?...

2. He'll rephrase his idea so it's situated in a context that makes some sense... how feasible is it to kill the virus once it does get inside the body?...

3. He was just asking the question of the expert, drawing him out....

But he didn't do any of those things. He did something I didn't even think of, calling it sarcasm. It's a little demoralizing to those of us who have been giving him a sympathetic listen. Maybe I'm demoralized because I didn't find myself on the inside, with the people who understood the sarcasm. Did anyone understand it as sarcasm?

In March 2019, I went into some detail about Trump's use of sarcasm — laid on very thickly in front of a very sympathetic audience:

The NYT revives the old "Is it art?" debate for Plague Times: "a case can be made that quarantine nude selfies are art."

I'm reading "The Nude Selfie Is Now High Art/It has become an act of resilience in isolation, a way to seduce without touch" by the novelist Diana Spechler in the NYT.

Though the debate about art versus pornography has never been settled, a case can be made that quarantine nude selfies are art. 

Yes, but is it high art, as the headline asserts. This issue strikes me as nonsense. I don't even accept that nudes are pornography...

... nor do I accept that something is either pornography or art and can't be both. And I don't accept that something becomes more artistic because it's "an act of resilience in isolation." Routine masturbation could be called "an act of resilience in isolation."

Some of us finally have time to make art, and this is the art we are making: carefully posed, cast in shadows, expertly filtered. These aren’t garish below-the-belt shots under fluorescent lighting, a half-used roll of toilet paper in the background....

Wait. I think the edgy, gritty quality is more artistic. I think using a lot of bullshit — "carefully posed, cast in shadows, expertly filtered" — is banal and sentimental and less likely to qualify as art. It sounds as though Spechler is talking about people who are making a special effort to look pretty and using computer tools to flatter themselves. That's low art, at best. The headline promised high art.

I'm skipping over a lot of material, including talk of great painters (Goya, Van Gogh), because ultimately Spechler's own words undercut the argument. The naked selfies of the lockdown don't deserve (or need) elevation to the status of "high art." She says:

Though it might require a bit of squinting to see pandemic-era nude selfie-snapping on a par with Basquiat, geniuses hold no monopoly on the instinct to self-preserve. Or on the yearning to be witnessed. Sending a nude selfie is a request to be witnessed — not objectively, but through rose-tinted (or smooth-filtered) lenses....

That's just saying everyone has feelings and does some things that express those feelings. When is the evidence of an expression of feeling art? Is the product of routine masturbation — done as an act of resilience in isolation — an artwork?

Plenty of people are lonely, frustrated, and burdened with extra time. That's actually not the most profound feeling in the world. And "Look at me!!" is even less profound. It's not saying anything interesting or original. It's an expression. Fine.

"The Onion was NEVER fake news. It's just news written by a time traveler with a horrible sense of humor."

Someone tweets, looking at this Onion headline from March 25th:

Man Just Buying One Of Every Cleaning Product In Case Trump Announces It’s Coronavirus Cure https://t.co/3bKatQGz04 pic.twitter.com/0kkhWzjl98

— The Onion (@TheOnion) March 25, 2020