What a great way to show them some respect from r/nextfuckinglevel
March 30, 2020
"One day, we might look back at the coronavirus pandemic as yet another societal cataclysm that shaped a young generation of Americans, like 9/11 or the Great Recession."
"Perhaps the hardship will make them heartier, or maybe more anxious. Or the long lens of history will reveal this as a time when teens’ addiction to social media and virtual communication – the focus of such parental angst — brought unexpected salvation. But for now, we’re all still in the woods, amid school closings and canceled graduations and proms, the fresh demands of distance learning and the persistent drone of children whining to be with their friends. The fault lines of modern parenting that separate those who can draw a firm line from those loathe to say 'No' have never been more exposed. Elisa would say 'No' if she felt it would matter, but her son’s nature isn’t going to change overnight. Julian loves people and the outdoors. ('Adrenaline rush, that’s my kind of thing,' he says.) Plus he’s impulsive — a trait of his ADHD — and boyishly 'hard-headed,' said his mother, despite him turning 18 in October."
From "He’s 18 and wants to hang with 'his boys.' His mom hasn’t been able to stop him" (WaPo).
From "He’s 18 and wants to hang with 'his boys.' His mom hasn’t been able to stop him" (WaPo).
"In the 1980s, Escobar decided to make his own personal zoo on his palatial estate in Antioquia, Colombia, illegally importing... four hippos."
"When Escobar died in 1993, the government removed the animals to zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. Wrangling the grumpy hippos, however, proved too big a task. So there they remained without any natural predators, ready to breed like crazy. Today, Escobar’s herd has grown to upward of 100 strong. To residents, they are a threatening menace, but among scientists their presence is the source of spirited debate. Are Escobar’s hippos 'invasive'? Or are they 'introduced'? Are they threatening the local ecological community? Or are they helping to 'rewild' the area? The answer is far from clear, but the debate could change the way we think about preserving habitats.... [Hippos graze on land and] defecate in the water... and many scientists worry they could dramatically affect the ecosystem.... [But] South America was once home to many large herbivores, including a semiaquatic rhino-like creature known as a notoungulate. It was also home to the giant llama, which was similarly responsible for grazing and nutrient recycling in the ecosystem. But those megafauna disappeared thousands of years ago, largely thanks to humans.... 'We should be interrogating our conception of nature,' said Erick Lundgren, lead author of [a] study. For Lundgren, the point is not to say that hippos 'belong' in South America but to recognize that 'belonging' is a values-based concept created by humans.... Human intervention may make conservationists uncomfortable, but given the scale of our biodiversity crisis, it seems foolish to dismiss a tool that could help."
From "The great conundrum of Pablo Escobar’s hippos" (WaPo). A lot going on in that article, not much reflection. It seems foolish to dismiss a tool that could help... that's an inane way to sum up a problem! Yes, it's "foolish" not to give something any thought at all, but that's saying just about nothing. The comments over there are all over the place — some in the childish "I love hippos" category, some saying what about the poor people who live there, and others dragging Trump into it (as if life is a matter of: First person to make a Trump wisecrack wins).
From "The great conundrum of Pablo Escobar’s hippos" (WaPo). A lot going on in that article, not much reflection. It seems foolish to dismiss a tool that could help... that's an inane way to sum up a problem! Yes, it's "foolish" not to give something any thought at all, but that's saying just about nothing. The comments over there are all over the place — some in the childish "I love hippos" category, some saying what about the poor people who live there, and others dragging Trump into it (as if life is a matter of: First person to make a Trump wisecrack wins).
I was going to say something like this about MSNBC, but Scott Adams has put it so well.
The best part of watching @realDonaldTrump pivot on policy -- based on current data and expert advice -- is that CNN can't figure out how to be on the opposing side. #coronavirus
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) March 30, 2020
"No one wants to be the first person to break the silence or say they’re sorry. This tension is constantly there..."
"... in everything that we do. I left a plate in the sink last night from a late dinner and she left me a Post-it note on the sink that was like, 'You’re a grown ass adult, please pick up after yourself.' So, yeah, it’s a little rough. Every single day I am more and more certain that we will be filing for divorce. I would rather be alone right now."
From "5 People on Being Isolated With Their Exes" (NY Magazine) — answering the question what would it be like if you had to shelter in place with a partner you were just about to leave and now you're stuck with for the duration of this war.
That quote is from a 33-year-old woman, talking about her wife. Here's another quote, also from a woman. She's 33 and talking about a male partner:
From "5 People on Being Isolated With Their Exes" (NY Magazine) — answering the question what would it be like if you had to shelter in place with a partner you were just about to leave and now you're stuck with for the duration of this war.
That quote is from a 33-year-old woman, talking about her wife. Here's another quote, also from a woman. She's 33 and talking about a male partner:
One of the hardest things right now is knowing I will not see my friends in person for a long time. The only people I trust right now have to stay six feet away and we can’t even go out for drinks to talk shit about him. That is killing me. And it’s only just begun...There's not much need to feel sorry for these people, but perhaps this is a prompt to look for the good in whatever relationship you have in your life, including the relationship called solitude.
"So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths. 2.2 million people from this. If we can hold that down as we’re saying, to 100,000..."
"... it’s a horrible number — maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000, we altogether have done a very good job. 2.2, up to 2.2 million deaths and maybe even beyond that? I’m feeling very good about what we did last week.... [Easter] was just an aspiration.... Easter... could be a peak period... We had an aspiration of Easter, but when you hear these kind of numbers and you hear the potential travesty, we don’t want to do anything where, you know, we don’t want to have it spike up. We don’t want to do it soon and then all of a sudden you go down, you’re coming down, and then you start going up again, because we discussed that could happen, and we don’t want that to happen. We’ve gone through too much.... I said, 'It would be a great thing if we could do it by Easter,' and we know much more now.... Unfortunately, the enemy is death. It’s death. A lot of people are dying, so it’s very unpleasant. It’s a very unpleasant thing to go through, but the level of competence, the level of caring, the level of love, I just think it’s brilliant and it’s possibly happening in other countries, possibly. I don’t know, I can’t speak to other countries, but I can speak to the United States of America, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I am very proud to be your President."
Said President Trump, at yesterday's coronavirus transcript.
2.2 million is a number — a number of deaths — that the experts were citing in the task force discussions. The continuing lockdown is portrayed as an effort to keep the number down to 100,000 deaths. You can see that when Trump said 100,000, he paused to declare that a "horrible number," because it is horrible to hear now, but 100,000 compares favorably to 2.2 million, which is the number he was told would die if we did nothing. As Trump put it:
Perhaps the metaphor of the cowboy came from the notion of getting — as quickly as possible — to "herd" immunity. But we are not cattle.
Said President Trump, at yesterday's coronavirus transcript.
2.2 million is a number — a number of deaths — that the experts were citing in the task force discussions. The continuing lockdown is portrayed as an effort to keep the number down to 100,000 deaths. You can see that when Trump said 100,000, he paused to declare that a "horrible number," because it is horrible to hear now, but 100,000 compares favorably to 2.2 million, which is the number he was told would die if we did nothing. As Trump put it:
[B]efore we heard the 2.2 million people... we had a lot of people were saying maybe we shouldn’t do anything, just ride it. They say ride it like a cowboy. Just ride it. Ride that sucker right through. That’s where the 2.2 million people come in. Would have died maybe, but it would have been 1.6 to 2.2, and that’s not acceptable, but there were a lot of people that said… I thought about it. I said, “Maybe we should ride it through.” You know you always hear about the flu.... You’ll have 35, 36, 37,000 people die, sometimes more, sometimes less. This is different....Ride it like a cowboy. Just ride it. Ride that sucker right through.... That was the alternative. Ride it like a cowboy... to 2.2 million deaths.
Perhaps the metaphor of the cowboy came from the notion of getting — as quickly as possible — to "herd" immunity. But we are not cattle.
March 29, 2020
"President Trump said Sunday that the federal government’s guidelines for social distancing would last until April 30..."
"... backing down from his previous comments that he hoped the country could go back to work by Easter.... Despite the pleas from state and city leaders for more medical supplies, Mr. Trump on Sunday appeared to suggest that New York hospitals are doing something improper with their surgical masks, saying that he does not believe they really need the amount of equipment they have said would be necessary to protect doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients. Asked to elaborate on his allegation, he said, 'I think people should check that because there’s something going on.' He added: 'I don’t think it’s hoarding. I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding.'"
The NYT reports.
The NYT reports.
How we live now.
Time to go take a stupid little fucking afternoon stroll
— ben (@bitch_updates) March 27, 2020
"We Can Safely Restart the Economy in June... Get tough now. Test widely to isolate those infected, and slowly revive businesses with workers and customers who have developed immunity."
Writes Ezekiel J. Emanuel in the NYT. Excerpt:
President Trump’s wish to open up the country by Easter and avoid a nationwide shelter-at-home policy is understandable. After all, a Covid-19-induced recession will cause its own serious health problems — depression; suicides; the damage stress will cause to those with heart disease, diabetes and other conditions, not to mention the effects of growing poverty....This is very helpful. This is the kind of talk we need right now. By contrast, I've heard quite a few commentators interpret Trump's idea of opening things up by Easter to mean that he wants to crowd the pews of churches on Easter! That's not the idea. The reopening will be done slowly and carefully, and it will not be a sudden return to the old way of living.
A nationwide shelter-in-place or quarantine should take place for the next eight to 10 weeks.... During the eight weeks of shelter-in-place, the federal government needs to produce and distribute enough tests so state and local health officials can check as many people as possible.... State and local health department[s] then need to deploy thousands of teams to trace contacts of all new Covid-19 cases... The national quarantine would give hospitals time to stock up on supplies and equipment.... States should use blood tests to certify people who have had Covid-19, are immune and are no longer contagious....
Slowly open the economy and social activities.... Lifting restrictions could start with children and young adults... Parents should be allowed to assess the risk that their children could become infected with the coronavirus and bring it home.... If the initial opening works, we should allow people in offices to go back to work in places where Covid-19 infections have died down. Businesses need to require workers to follow rules on physical distancing with fellow workers and customers.... We would then open museums and other venues to small numbers of people...
"My literary heroes were not Julien Sorel, Raskolnikov, or the local yokels of Yoknapatawpha County; they were Batman, Superman, the Flash, the Sub-Mariner, Hawkman."
"Yes, and Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny and Archie Andrews. Folks, you are reading the autobiography of a misanthropic gangster-loving illiterate; an uncultivated loner who sat in front of a three-way mirror practicing with a deck of cards so he could palm off an ace of spades, render it invisible from any angle, and hustle some pots."
From Woody Allen's "Apropos of Nothing."
Also: "I always took to anything that required solitude, like practicing sleight of hand or playing a horn or writing, as it kept me from having to deal with other humans who, for no explainable reason, I didn’t like nor trust. I say 'no reason' because I came from a large, loving, extended family who were all nice to me. It’s like I was a genetically born louse."
Julien Sorel is the protagonist of "The Red and the Black." I had to look it up... even though I read "The Red and the Black"... about 50 years ago. Do people still feel like they need to have read "The Red and the Black"? Well, back in the old days, we did.
As for the Sub-Mariner and Hawkman — never even heard of them.
From Woody Allen's "Apropos of Nothing."
Also: "I always took to anything that required solitude, like practicing sleight of hand or playing a horn or writing, as it kept me from having to deal with other humans who, for no explainable reason, I didn’t like nor trust. I say 'no reason' because I came from a large, loving, extended family who were all nice to me. It’s like I was a genetically born louse."
Julien Sorel is the protagonist of "The Red and the Black." I had to look it up... even though I read "The Red and the Black"... about 50 years ago. Do people still feel like they need to have read "The Red and the Black"? Well, back in the old days, we did.
As for the Sub-Mariner and Hawkman — never even heard of them.
Commenter Ryan suggests a fantastic drawing game!
From the comments thread on the first post of today:
You just need something to draw. Once, years ago, I came across an ad that had a collection of photos of smiling realtors. I still have those drawings somewhere, but I got really inspired trying to capture what felt to me like the insanity of their smiling. I wrote statements of their inner thoughts, explaining those facial expressions.
So that's a variation of Ryan's game — which I love as a game. Pick a face to draw, exaggerate the expression, and write out an imagined statement that somehow goes with that face. A way to do that with another person is for both to draw the same face and then see how differently you interpreted it.
Another thing I used to do — often with another person — is to watch some TV talking heads show — the news or whatever — and pause the TV on some interesting facial expression and draw the face. Add a snippet of what that face said, and feel free to make it as absurd and out of context as you like. Now, it's timeless art!
If you have kids try this game that I came up with by accident about 10 years ago: get their yearbook and draw someone, and then give them the drawing and the yearbook and see if they can figure it out. It's a fun game! We were playing last night and even cynical high school kids love it.Even without kids! This is a great game and great as a drawing project.
You just need something to draw. Once, years ago, I came across an ad that had a collection of photos of smiling realtors. I still have those drawings somewhere, but I got really inspired trying to capture what felt to me like the insanity of their smiling. I wrote statements of their inner thoughts, explaining those facial expressions.
So that's a variation of Ryan's game — which I love as a game. Pick a face to draw, exaggerate the expression, and write out an imagined statement that somehow goes with that face. A way to do that with another person is for both to draw the same face and then see how differently you interpreted it.
Another thing I used to do — often with another person — is to watch some TV talking heads show — the news or whatever — and pause the TV on some interesting facial expression and draw the face. Add a snippet of what that face said, and feel free to make it as absurd and out of context as you like. Now, it's timeless art!
I like the way this story is kept factual — we don't really know if the man who fell was the burglar or even if there was a burglary going on.
From The Wisconsin State Journal:
A man fell from the third story of a building on the 100 block of State Street when Madison police responded to a burglary in the early morning on Saturday.ADDED: Actually there's a factual deficiency in "Whether the man was involved with the burglary is unclear." I think it should be "Whether the man was involved in any burglary is unclear." We don't know that there was a burglary, only that someone called the police and said there was a burglary going on.
Police were called to a burglary in progress on the second floor of the building just before 3 a.m.
As officers arrived, "a male subject fell from the third floor," Madison police said. Whether the man was involved with the burglary is unclear....
"President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden are in a tightly competitive race for the White House in the November general election, with the president gaining ground..."
"... on his likely challenger over the past month as the coronavirus pandemic convulses the country, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Trump has moved from what was a seven-point deficit in February to a near tie with Biden today. Among registered voters, Biden is favored by 49 percent and Trump by 47 percent.... Trump is more trusted to handle the economy, while Biden is more trusted to deal with health care. When voters are asked whom they trust more to confront the coronavirus outbreak, the difference between the two is statistically insignificant."
WaPo reports.
The "statistically insignificant" difference on coronavirus is Trump 47%, Biden 43%. It's strange that "health care" is a completely different topic, but you know that "health care" means how to pay for it — insurance. When it comes to coronavirus, the how-to-pay-for-it subject flies out the window. Pay anything! Pay everything! If we don't fix this, we've got nothing!
Anyway, it's a strange matter to compare Trump and Biden on coronavirus. Trump is actively engaged in solving the problem, and we've got to be hoping he'll be effective, though I suspect there are some Americans who care more about installing the Democratic Party into power for the next 4 years than they care about getting us out of this jam. But the idea of Biden stepping in... that's not even something that can happen for 10 months. Who can think about Biden somehow doing better than Trump 10 months from now?!
WaPo reports.
The "statistically insignificant" difference on coronavirus is Trump 47%, Biden 43%. It's strange that "health care" is a completely different topic, but you know that "health care" means how to pay for it — insurance. When it comes to coronavirus, the how-to-pay-for-it subject flies out the window. Pay anything! Pay everything! If we don't fix this, we've got nothing!
Anyway, it's a strange matter to compare Trump and Biden on coronavirus. Trump is actively engaged in solving the problem, and we've got to be hoping he'll be effective, though I suspect there are some Americans who care more about installing the Democratic Party into power for the next 4 years than they care about getting us out of this jam. But the idea of Biden stepping in... that's not even something that can happen for 10 months. Who can think about Biden somehow doing better than Trump 10 months from now?!
"Pick up anything and start sketching. Your iPhone - take all those ridiculous pictures you took - all of that is a form of drawing."
"All the funny little songs you thought, oh, that's got a great lyric, those are the beginning of ideas. Every dream you have is a possible little bit of an idea. And all of that can be put into use - all of your obsessions. Yes, you like to watch dog videos. Well, maybe you might want to make one. So what if it's not that good? I'm telling you the lessons I've learned in a lifetime of doing it and being terrified of doing it and a lifetime of talking to real artists. The only way to take the curse of fear away from working - the only way is to get to work."
From "Art Critic Jerry Saltz On His New Book 'How To Be An Artist'" (NPR).
Here's the book. Sample text:
From "Art Critic Jerry Saltz On His New Book 'How To Be An Artist'" (NPR).
Here's the book. Sample text:
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