Your first two paragraphs had my blood pressure rise. Just the mere mention of Kushner and Navarro bring furor.
Grifters grift. If we have learned nothing else these horrid people wanted government out of their pockets but they helped themselves to money made off of our PPE equipment. The snide comment by Kushner, telling states that they were in their own, was so inhumane and cruel. I pray after the DOJ’s office finishes with going through the millions of papers they discovered, Kushner and Navarro will be held over a flame until they cry “uncle”. That really is my vision for any of the seditionists.
Biden is our guide. He has appointed competent people. We have to be grateful for that.
I'm afraid twe have no such luck! NZ is 2 islands. she shut it down and off from the world very early and caught the bug napping. She has done the same every time she has faced a rare imported case since. No messing with the lady.
Britain is an island but dithered and France refused to shut borders and test and quarantine any arrivals. We got what we deserved.
Come on Stuart. Who deserves death by disease? Death because of ignorance? Death because of poor judgement? No one, but it does happen and there is no dithering about that.
Will we do better next time and there will be a next time? Maybe is the only answer I can see. In fact, I can still see the past, my past. I admit to having had the following diseases: measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, pnuemonia, whooping cough and an assortment of broken bones. All of these were when I was a child.
My children had none of these, except for the broken bones. That is an improvement over my generation and those before me.
We are on the edge of medical miracles. They have happened and are happening now.
These things are what we deserve. The comes and goes. Eventually, we will defeat those other things that come our way in the form of diseases.
Perfection, no, but better, yes.
You are so right that diseases caught us napping. Some of us are still asleep, but more of us are awakening. With awareness comes knowledge. With knowledge comes understanding. With understanding come wisdom.
The goal is to be wise enough to use our awareness, knowledge and understanding to do what will benefit us, our families and neighbors as well as people we have never met, nor will meet.
I was in NZ last year, returning to the US on March 12, just as everything was shutting down. Jacinda (as my NZ relatives refer to her) gave online updates during their initial shutdown to reassure citizens and explain the rationale behind the decisions being made. She was an inspiring example of calm, confident, science-driven leadership.
I didn’t say anyone was, especially at this point since the election is over. It is obnoxious though on this site that you can’t say anything negative about Biden without getting raked over the coals. I know everyone here thinks he is some kind of second coming of FDR but sorry to say that is just not the case. FDR would have pushed for Medicare for all and a much larger jobs guarantee.
FDR came to the Presidency after the shock of the ‘29 Crash in the bottom of the depression, crippled, with a brilliant wife, comparisons always break down, but FDRs following was a higher percentage of the population. Bidens only been in office a few months. Let’s see what he does next.
It is a good thing to remember how incompetent the previous administration really was. (Paul Krugman has an essay in a similar vein about the 2017 tax cuts in the OpEd page of today's NY Times.)
There really are things, very necessary things, only government can do. Dealing with a national pandemic probably tops the list.
Not just a cruel and stupid policy, but also underlying desperation that the chaotic, ineffective, destructive (and sometimes completely absent) “government” under the previous occupant of the WH would be discovered. And eventually it was.
More to come, no doubt, re incompetence and cruelty of the last administration. I consoled two children along the way imploring them to stay the course at Dept of State and DOJ. As I explained, we need good people in place to recover from the atrocities committed.
I imagine that as a difficult challenge. Thank you! Without good and effective worker bees holding up Justice and Diplomacy how can we ever hold the crooks accountable or right the ship? 🙏
Well, my prosecutor son is 40 and my FSO daughter 37. Does that make them "young" adults? Some would say yes. I would say they are in the prime of their career!
This is why I keep rattling the cage re Floriduh's 2022 Governor's race. Ron DeSantis is an iDJT sycophant if there ever was one. He must be defeated and replaced with Democrat to turn Florida around. We'll need much support from around the country to make this happen.
We need to do everything we can to get rid of DeSantis, Rubio and Rick Scott. DeSantis has screwed up this state even more than when he assumed office. And he recently received his COVID shot without any publicity. It would have gone a long way to encourage his followers to do so as well, but instead he covers his eyes and says everything is fine. And, while we are at it, we have to somehow get rid of the Republican state legislators. They are about to pass that hideous bill which makes protesting in public (group more than 3) subject to arrest.
Perhaps. A lot can happen between now and 2024, most importantly HR 1 and major infrastructure legislation. To me, the mid-term 2022 election is the very big deal. If the pandemic has been tamed and the above legislation has been enacted, I think the Democrats have a better than even chance of keeping their congressional majorities. That would be immense.
Right now the public face of the Republican Party is Matt Gaetz.
With the filibuster staying in its current form, see Manchin, HR1 is going nowhere.
Six months from now it will be “Matt who?”
As this article points out, we, as a nation, are known for our short memory.
I wish I could think of solid reasons why the Dems will hold the House in midterms, but I can’t. Trump has a stranglehold on his followers.
If the House is lost, the first order of business will to impeach Biden. Not once, but twice; just like Trump was impeached twice. Revenge politics at its worst.
I know nothing of the law in your country, but in the US, no matter how serious the allegations may be, the accused is given the presumption of innocence. See the current Chauvin trial.
What is in question is a regime so constipated that seditious conspirators can continue their activities without let or hindrance.
Suchlike have gotten away with plenty in my country too... likewise because our constitutional arrangements are no longer adequate to protect us from mountebanks and worse.
All this travesty will be forgotten, and the repubs will find something more to lie about. The Dems need to keep reminding: Republicans Lying, Americans Dying (and they continue to do worse than that)...
Right now that pubic face is self destructing. Challenging Cheney on her own home turf will end up with both R’s and D’Souza burying him for his peckerdilloes.
but the day is young.... a few months from now, when the high marks for Biden will keep rolling in... 'they' will see....the economy will heal, slowly at first, but then it will become bigger and better, ...the infrastructure boom will roll out... jobs reports will look better and better...the new dawn will just keep rising, and I don't think they will have a leg to stand on...
Paul Krugman had two opinion pieces in the NYT on April 9. One dealt with the looming defeat of democracy here because of State voter repression laws and the other, a reprint from his 'newsletter' dealt with taxes. I referred to the latter. BetsyC refers to that column below.
Absolutely— if there was ever a problem that needed federal leadership it is and was this pandemic. We are most fortunate to have a president who understands this and is forging ahead.
"But what it [the 2020 pandemic] has taught us about government is important to remember."
It certainly is. When I saw Kushner's name again, I was reminded just how successful Trump's family was in looting the country during the pandemic and during Trump's entire term of office. I want to see Jarvanka (Jared + Ivanka) held to account for all the money they made during Trump's time in office. I'm sure Trump delayed telling the public about Covid in order to use the time figuring out how his family could make a fortune off of it.
I hope we do not forget Kushner’s immorality and criminal tendencies as time passes. He’s young and could re-emerge in government since he’s so arrogant.
Thinking about the loss of the vote to unionize at Amazon and President Biden’s plea to keep wearing masks, I’m wondering if the former failed 45, the iDJT, and his followers have turned into smarmy 2 year olds saying “You’re not the boss of me.” The mass murderer should be ashamed to show his face. I recently watched the outstanding Ken Burns film on Mark Twain (Amazon Prime) who was embarrassed that he had to declare bankruptcy and worked years to repay all his debts. Before his publishing company failed, General Grant’s autobiography was Clemens’ biggest moneymaker. Now our democracy is threatened by a bully who declared bankruptcy 6 times, left thousands unpaid, and said not paying taxes makes him smart. Fauci and others needed protection against threats by bullies. Biden’s election should have given him setup time and money to form a new government but he was shut out for almost three months. He has done an amazing job since January 20 righting the wrongs Republicans would like us to forget. Thank you HCR and other historians for keeping truth alive. Let’s do our part!
I'm loving "iDJT" as I struggle as many do to avoid using the former president's name. I was slow on the uptake, thinking at first it was a typo! I prefer "idgit" to "idiot" so "iDJT" fits right in with my style. Consider it adopted!
I had never noticed how the initials fit until I saw it in capitals. Apologies to the person on this list who originated it. Please show yourself and take a bow.
Alabama is a very tough nut for unions to crack. It's a right-to-work state, the hallmark of which is that no one is actually guaranteed a job. Bah.
Still, I think that soon enough there will be a breakthrough at an Amazon facility somewhere else, in a more hospitable organizing environment. A successful union drive in the heart of the global online economy could be a turning point in putting movement back in the labor movement.
As for Grant, the general and president of freedom, it was long rumored that his Memoirs were brilliant because Twain actually wrote the majority. Not so. The same brilliance also appears in Grant's letters, wartime dispatches and orders. It's unmistakably the same level of talent.
I was born & raised in Alabama, daughter of URW Local 351. We had many parades in Tuscaloosa, maybe 5 a year? Just a guess. High School Bands from all over West Alabama joined in. The Milliin Dollar Band from UA often participated. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, floats galore. The biggest parade of the year was the Labor Day Parade. It was an all day event for many. The year Gulf States Paper Corp. closed the paper mill was the beginning of the end to union strength, at least in Tuscaloosa. The owner told striking workers that he would close the plant before giving them what they wanted. The history buffs among you might enjoy this piece about it.
Thank you for your response. I was feeling that President Biden’s mention of the union vote was what turned it negative. There are so many nasty lying trolls out there, from Fox News on down, or rather, on up. I’m looking forward to reading Grant. My high school history teacher called him Useless and now I’m wondering why.
Thank you too, Gigi. Grant's "Personal Memoirs" are very detailed, and only the annotated edition released about the same time as Chernow's biography has adequate maps to ID numerous place names. It takes effort to read, but may be worth it. Chernow's "Grant" is among the great American biogs; you may prefer to start there. Happy reading.
Its pretty crazy to see "Sado Populism" at work. When people vote against their own long term interest. I agree.
There is something similar to voting not to unionize, and refusing to mask and vaccinate. I've thought that we need better communications from the CDC to pull at peoples heart strings to change their behavior. Biden needs a stronger/better PR campaign to communicate to the masses. Biden Admin needs to fund more convincing messages for public health. We needed to do this from the start and are not. I still don't think we are communicating effectively to change behavior, and until we do, this pandemic will go to extra innings.
This is how the admin could pull harder on the heart strings of all Americans, its a messaging ad of empathy from Cleveland Clinic....but it would be an easy format to adjust to promote masks and vax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8
Indeed! Maybe our pols need to be reminded of this. I keep returning to 14th century Siena and Lorenzetti’s allegory: “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between February 1338 and May 1339. The paintings are located in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico—specifically in the Sala dei Nove ("Salon of Nine"), the council hall of the Republic of Siena's nine executive magistrates,[2] elected officials who performed executive functions (and judicial ones in secular matters). The paintings have been construed as being "designed to remind the Nine [magistrates] of just how much was at stake as they made their decisions".[3]
Considered Lorenzetti's "undisputed masterpiece",[4] the series consists of six different scenes (the titles are all modern conveniences):
Allegory of Good Government
Allegory of Bad Government
Effects of Bad Government in the City
Effects of Bad Government in the Country
Effects of Good Government in the City
Effects of Good Government in the Country“ Thanks to Wikipedia.
Mary, what a delight to find out about this. I visited Siena but did not know to look for it. I found it interesting that “ The virtues of Good Government are represented by six crowned, stately female figures: Peace, Fortitude, and Prudence on the left, Magnanimity, Temperance, and Justice on the right. On the far left of the fresco the figure of Justice is repeated as she is balancing the scales held by Wisdom. All women.
Jan, thank YOU for pointing this out. The "all women" observation somehow passed me by!I I guess it all seemed totally natural! However, I did enjoy this: https://youtu.be/NouQ7eoPFUs. Worth 2 min and 27 secs of your time!
Thank you Mary, for highlighting these famous frescos. A few years ago they were described on TV in a memorable scene from The Good Wife, to explain running for office.
Thank you TPJ. Spent the day - first in over a year - in little community 40 miles or so south of San Fran, to visit a well known goat dairy and check out the baby goats, and buy fresh goat cheese. It was wonderful to be out and about (carefully, of course), enjoy the ocean, and once again the local family-run tavern where I first ate artichoke soup, fresh fish, and their famous Olallieberry pie in 1973. I came home exhausted from walking around the goat farm and checking out the lovely creatures, and actually seeing so many people again. I am looking forward to checking out your source tomorrow, when I have recovered. It's lovely to linger over "pleasures".
I'm not surprised but I am assured by your history lesson. It further strengthens my belief that history repeat (more like rhymes) but through the course of human existence, it slowly improves.
The frustrating thing is human behavior severely lags behind human technology. The tech/internet/social media boom is the most recent example.
Every time we get new tools to raise the human condition, humans find a way to pound it back into the ground.
So liberals can keep aspiring to new heights and conservative can keep insisting change is bad but that takes me back to my good/bad people comment. It's the most simplest things that are often the hardest to achieve.
"Slowly improves" might slightly understate the changes to civilization in the past 500 years versus those in the previous 1000 years when little change occurred. And the rate of change (and the requirements for change) seems to still be increasing. What was true 75 years ago when I was born (such as a submissive response to overwhelming force) isn't happening anymore. Poor Third World countries are standing up to Superpowers and outlasting them (eg: Afghanistan vs USSR & US; Vietnam vs US & China) A very different result than when South America bowed before European guns and diseases.
When I think of change, I think of the Iroquois concept of "seven generations," and the lyrics to Susan Werner's song, "May I Suggest," especially this verse:
There is a hope / That's been expressed in you / The hope of seven generations, maybe more. And this is the faith / That they invest in you / It's that you'll do one better than was done before. Inside you know / Inside you understand / Inside you know what's yours to finally set right...
There are blinders on all of us ... love and loyalty render us unable to rebel against the past; unable to see the present; unable to conjure a better future. Intelligence and wisdom are no guarantee against these powerful forces which bind us together in families, clans, tribes, nations, and religious armies. Yet there are subtle forces that, like gravity, gently tug on our souls to be kind to a stranger, to hug an orphan, and to embrace a former enemy. It is these more subtle yearnings that bind all souls together, that unite humankind and earthlifekind. It may be justified for us to think ourselves special but it comes at a horrible price when it compels us to think others "evil."
Mary you gave of the place, the time, the subject matter - a perfect representations for the meaning of today's Letter. Thank you. Now I want to see the pictures.
Fern, I remember the first time I saw them, and was “blown away”! Wish I could go back and see them again! But that’s a big question mark at my age, however no harm in “dreaming” that maybe I’ll go back, and maybe our “pols” will “get it”.
Bingo, Christopher. Unfortunately, Americans' spines have been so fatally compromised by misinformation as to turn those who are so proud of thinking for themselves into automatons. We may still have free speech, but free-thinking is disappearing.
Joining this substack has re-taught me that will live in a perpetual state of swinging pendulums and up and down sine waves. Stick around long enough and it will come back around. Just need to find the accelerator pedal.
Oh, gosh, there is so much to unpack in this "motto". If only it was that simple. I am continually daunted by these sayings that obscure the deeper issues of a democracy. Sure let's elect "good" people.
The characteristics I think most readily define "good" people seem to be empathy and compassion; the ability to see and appreciate the other point of view. My concern is that the term "evil" seems to often block this ability and enable us to wreak havoc on others before thinking things through and looking for nonviolent alternatives.
Read into it whatever you like, it's just a statement. Both major parties are adept in electing a-holes. Republican's are better at but Democrats have more than their fair share.
If I'd said bad politicians are elected by under educated, misinformed or overtly biased people maybe we could all agree that the uneven educational system is the real culprit.
Where'd you get your degree in passive/aggressive/snarkery and were you valedictorian of your class?
janjamm, your response to Christopher was very kind. It is patently obvious that, “where’d you get your degree in passive/aggressive/snarkery and were you valedictorian in your class?” Should earn dear sweet Chris a PHD.
It is difficult for me to understand that an administration elected to protect the citizens of this country, failed miserably. And, yet 70 million people voted to re-elect that same administration in 2020. Thank the Universe that more people voted for the Biden administration. I have never understood what the draw was for DT, but I woke up on January 21, 2021 able to breathe for the first time knowing that the country was going to run the way it was designed to by those who fought for our freedom and, later, established a Constitution for us, all. Now, my frustration lies with the citizens who are simply ignoring what needs to be done, and overwhelming an already precarious health system, to end this pandemic. Just venting
Fran, a neighbor who is a fervent Trumper told my husband yesterday that Trump is “coming back in September” as President. Sadly, he is obviously only one among many who is Trump-eting this great news. That terrifies me. We must find a way to un-brainwash people like this!
Yeah, the My Pillow Guy has been trumpeting that tidbit of information for a couple weeks now. First March, now September. The QT contingency reminds me of the Hale Bopp Cult, Heaven's Gate.
Hale Bopp was a contingency of 40 people. I wish we could say the same for the Q's, the 4Chans, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front, etc. The cult list is almost endless. It still shocks me to find so many radical right groups that operate as cults do. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/groups
Yes, it was only 40 people. I, too, am struck by how cult like radical right groups are and how easily people are sucked into them. It's as though they live in a tunnel where making a U turn is nearly impossible.
David, when he didn’t come back in March as our neighbor said he would, it was as if he’d never told us that it would. I feel quite certain that the same thing will happen in September. This sort of behavior always brings to mind how everyone searches for a motive when there is a mouse killing. Often, no one can come up with a motive. There are some people whose behavior defies logic and rationally.
If we can’t get The iDJT placed in the penitentiary we can pray he runs for President once again. The only thing the Orange u tan man can motivate more than tRumpers is his loyal opposition. We will come out in droves to defeat him :
Christy, it looks like this involves a cost. I would never get him to participate and I would not spend money knowing that ir would be wasted! But i do thank you for the suggestion.
Sorry Sara. I should have been more clear in my intent in posting the link. There’s a ton of info there to unpack. I tried to post the page that gave specific suggestions for talking with the “brainwashed”, but perhaps failed in that. I have not explored the part about treatment but I imagine that is more for concerned family and friends of folks that are verging on some really stupid behavior like an insurrection. These were the words I specifically thought might be helpful: “ With the hope that there will be a mass exodus from QAnon and the cult of Trump, how can we help? Please be respectful, compassionate and loving. Please reignite old positive memories. Focus on common issues that you both share-love of nature, children, animals, sports, whatever will help you to reconnect. As they change their stance, they may be cut off from their fellow believers’ support. We need to take the first step. Reach out to friends and family. Do not say, “I told you so” but “I miss you.”
One of the new initiatives I am proud to be a part of is the #iGotOut movement. Millions of us were a part of a destructive cult or relationship and successfully left. We need to normalize this experience. By doing so, we can provide an off-ramp for QAnon and Trump followers. They can begin to let go of phobias, understanding they are not legitimate fears. Ex-Followers need to understand they are not stupid. For most, they really wanted to make a difference and see a real change. Connect. Share. Amplify. Use the hashtag #iGotOut on social media and share how you got out. Connect with others who did the same. Amplify your voice. We don’t have to stay silent. Our stories of survival can resonate and inspire those still suffering from undue influence to get out and get free!
We are all Americans and need to work together to reboot the country. We can move forward to repair damage, promote science, and rebuild relationships. We must unify and not divide. 2021 is full of hope!”
Christy, thank you for the clarification and explanation. I admire you for getting yourself out have a bed situation. It surely takes strength, courage, and determination.
In our situation, our neighbor is more of an acquaintance than a friend. There is never really been a connection between us. We agree on virtually nothing. Covid is a hoax, birds and animals should be shot, There was no Russian involvement in our elections, there is no racism in the USA, etc., etc. i honestly don’t see that he can be turned around, I’m sorry to say.
Sara, iI’m guessing you missed the quotation marks in my reply quoting from the link. That was Steven Hassan, an expert on exiting cults speaking. My misunderstanding to think you were looking for actual info rather than speaking rhetorically. No big deal. It’s all good.
Have you heard anything from our President, Schumer, Pelosi touting the escalation in vaccinating the population? its consequences? the newly proposed American Jobs Plan? Silence in response to anticipation of the 2nd coming of Agent Chaos vacuums the greater good that actually is being sought today by such a plan right out of the room. This is the time for us - you, me, and our "leaders" to replace our silence with fact burnished by heart based arguments of the difference a Biden and a democratic majority in the House is making over the wake of pure thievery that characterized the pure gaul of Agent Chaos's administration. Speak truth again again again.
Fighting for freedom and writing the constitution may not be the same people. History is told by who wrote it. It can be argued that the progressive thinking Hamiltons who fought for freedom were in opposition to the slaveholder Jeffersons who wrote the constituton and eventually hold to power.
Yes they’re out there but in lesser numbers. For my own sanity I choose not to focus on them. Many many people are on a positive and stable course now.
But the right wing folks won’t remember. And the left is also rapidly forgetting. We are at risk for our next election cycle. Government has its place and if the Republicans get power again they won’t relinquish it easily. We must remember what Capitalism unchecked has wrought!
Hi Kelly..Orlando here! This morning on Smerconish Carl Hiassen ( who just retired from Miami Herald) referred to plans for a "Trump Library"(oxymoron, right?) in FL. He said there will be fights against it in any number of locales. I hope Palm Beach fights it on the basis of gauche-ness if nothing else. Hiassen also said Gaetz is " not a candidate for Mensa." In FL, he says, when you combine stupidity with an arrogance about getting away with things you get "Florida weird".
I get it believe me. Living in SRQ is downright depressing, but if we ever get independent commissions for redistricting the end of the nightmare may be in sight. Support the American Jobs Bill HR 1
St. Pete and Pinellas County is evidently loaded with Democrats and people who can make choices that work. Diane, I believe we are in the right place to grow more blue pathways to the central, northern and southern parts of Florida. Nice to look forward to a change.
Thx. I am working hard to change the state. But it's an uphill battle. My Rep in Congress beat a great candidate (well known and loved former TV News anchor, started a foundation for breast cancer survivors years ago) by 34 points. He won't have Town Halls because he says it gives Dems press opportunities. He is former Sherriff and is iDJT all the way. Then, there's Rick Scott and Lidl Rubio.
You Tube removed a Covid video our Gov put up last week because it contained falsehoods. Dr. Atlas (of iDJT fame) was on the panel. Republicans are aiming their 1st Amendment rights have been violated by You Tube. The legislature is controlled by Republicans. It's an absolute hot mess!
There were so many instances the past administration ignored custom or protocol that it’s imperative we need concrete laws to prevent it happening again. The transition was one of the last, very dangerous examples.
well, there are Mansion and Sinema, blocking and tackling every good proposal they can find...Who purchased them that they are so fearful of doing the right things? Or merely another case of clinging to "power"...
There is a genuine head of steam building to pressure Biden to get rid of the filibuster, but I think he still feels that somehow he can bring the likes of a Matt Gaetz or Rick Scott to understand the needs for real infrastructure. Good luck with that.
Next door to me is an infant cemetery for twenty or thirty infants who died of influenza in 1918. It is a little spooky in there with the low hanging oaks and dim light. We are lucky that Covid doesn’t like to kill infants and kids, so far at least.
I enjoyed reading Stuart’s take on France. Just because of the feeling in the posts that I am hearing an inside story, a truth. I do think there is a flavor to the truth. We have just lost its taste because it is so rarely felt. Today we just get spin from most news outlets. That is what I like about HCR. And no, I don’t think it matters that Maine is mostly white.
At the beginning of the epidemic I was in the Bahamas and I gave a talk on what to expect. This was February. I said that since it was a novel virus, meaning none of us have any immunity we would all either have to get it or get a vaccine. Our only choices were when and where to get it or how long it would take to develop the vaccine. There was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact. That fact is still true and is a fact that should/could be in play regarding people’s individual choice to receive a vaccine. Eyes are still glazed apparently.
From this I’m reminded of how as a species we thrive on hope even if it is a fantasy. Realism just can’t compete. I hope our situation with the For The People Act doesn’t go the same way. If the notion of free elections becomes a hopeful fantasy because the reality is that too many of our current leaders were elected more for their personal monetary concerns than the concerns of democracy then we are there. Every day I try to understand what is happening with the bill. What is the process for getting it out of committee? Still, I have no idea. The senate rules at .gov just say the committee will vote on it. Clearly, that doesn’t always happen so what’s up? Clearly, it would be preferable for the repressive opposition to let it fade in the national attention by being wound up in committee while the state level fights take center stage.
I also find it interesting that the bill to improve voting is a national bill while the bills to restrict voting are state bills. I guess I have been a strong federal government advocate for some time. I believe we have to be one country not a bunch of states loosely held together. I recognize a past where statehood was important. Transportation and communications over long distances were not as they are now. No one tries to limit their business or their travel or anything at all to their state boundaries. But contrarily, it seems that if you are spending money to influence voters the best way to do it is locally. So it makes sense that repressive voices focus locally. It is hard to argue with your neighbors even if they are nuts but especially if they are more willing to be violent. I have so much respect for those black people who stood up to the Klan. Wow.
You said a mouthful here: "here was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact. That fact is still true and is a fact that should/could be in play regarding people’s individual choice to receive a vaccine. Eyes are still glazed apparently."
Eyes are glazed here in Oregon (or they are ablaze with conspiracy theories; sometimes both.) This thing ain't over. Don't let your guard down.
I like your point that we thrive on hope and find realism difficult. My angled paraphrasing. Hope requires little in substance and we can morph with it without exercise or energy. Whereas realism require evaluative thought, active acquisition of new knowledge (truth), and has consequences of got that right or got that wrong. This makes us good prey to fantasists and grifters forever in all things.
Patrick, your description of the audiences' reaction when you were giving a talk at the beginning of the pandemic in February, more than a year ago, will stay in my mind:
'Our only choices were when and where to get it or how long it would take to develop the vaccine. There was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact.' '......Eyes are still glazed apparently.'
That provoked me to think about what is happening now in Michigan; the reluctance of many Republicans to take the vaccine as well as others. America is so desperately sick a number of ways, and it took the deadly virus to spell that out.
I think that you have clearly laid issues and questions. H.R. 1 may be stalled by work to tailor it in a way to get it passed but also as matter of timing given Biden's heavy and difficult agenda.
On another point, I don't think that we've lost the flavor of truth, it is unforgettable. Unfortunately, perhaps, some have not tasted it or are absolutely overcome by greed and self-interest.
Yes, through our current experiences, attention to the mechanics of power, reading, concern and Heather's Letters we are feeling more of the savagery inflicted on the Black people of this country.
Thank you, Patrick, for saying what people need to know whether they're receptive or not. As a sometime historian of disease, I have sounded the alarm about Covid-19 since Feb 2020, in person and online. Yet too many people still refuse to take it seriously, seizing any rationale for indulging in selfish behavior. And until Jan 20, the lack of leadership compounded every problem. Despite the Biden admin's impressive results, it's still quite likely that Covid-19's death toll will surpass that of 1918-19. So much avoidable suffering and death ... tragic.
Biden’s impressive results notably do not include a 4-5 week lockdown with wages covered. The only proven method for stopping this virus in its tracks.
The US should have emulated many European countries: the strictest shutdown for 4-5 weeks as you note (I'd say 6), with government deficit spending covering wages, budgets, rents, mortgages, insurance. But that required actually giving a schist about the American people, and the Trumpsky admin did not.
There is no worthy credit due to the previous administration. Now we must only certain that we rid ourselves of the remnants and make certain that our Democracy survives their scourge against voting rights.
Corbitt your point is so very important! We seem to be on the verge of forgetting how fragile our Republic really is. And there are several countries (Russia for one) that are actively pushing us towards failure. We must as a people stand up against the suppression of the vote.
When Ohio went for trump in the 2016 election a primal scream of distress was elicited from this household. Across the country, my siblings, children, friends and I noted he would, figuratively and/or literally, kill us all. The combination of incompetence throughout the so called “administration” and trump’s corrupt and dishonorable ways left no other outcome. We recognized the election of this evil person went beyond “normal” and fell into the category of a non-benevolent dictator-wanna-be who picked up the vitriolic rhetoric and modus operandi of the Newt Gringrich era. trump and his minions should be charged with crimes against humanity given their blatant and intentional mishandling of the pandemic.
The US is the largest global corporation and government in the world (and in history). Thank goodness we now have an administration that exhibits benevolent and compassionate leadership combined with a widespread network and deep bench of smart, experienced people who actually know how to govern and understand the massive departments they oversee.
Thanks to people like Heather, there is a growing number of people becoming aware, educated, and involved.... re-awakened to understanding the fact that a well run democracy requires participation and paying attention! That the republicans stonewall any and everything that doesn’t line their own pockets is abhorrent and deadly. There is zero cooperation or intellectual prowess on their part and hopefully the Biden/Harris administration and “we the people” can maintain the momentum to turn the tide against those who only want to do harm.
Primal scream of distress, yes. I uttered such in 2016 and then lived with rising anxiety until January 20, 2021. I try to maintain optimism and I generally concur with your assessment above. But then the venality of Republicans...particularly here in the South...stars-and-bars everywhere...sometimes I am so tired.
The folks that lost someone during these sad times will not forget. My moms mother died of the 1918 influenza. She was 34 years old. My mom was 4 years old. This time around it has, so far, been older folks that have been taken but old or young these premature losses are very heavy to bear for the families they happen to. I look at the picture of my grandmother in her organdie gown in 1905, so beautiful, hopeful and happy, her whole life before her and am so sad that neither my mother or I ever got the chance to really know her. When I look in the mirror I see her smile, and my mom’s smiling back at me so perhaps, they are not so far away after all.🥰
Thank you for the powerful reminder that history may repeat itself if we let it. The grifters and scoundrels we have had running our government and ruining our lives since Ronald Reagan are shameful. Hopefully we are moving out of the Reagan era for good. As HCR writes, "Remembering the nation’s suffering under the pandemic matters because the contrast between the disastrous last year and our hope this spring is a snapshot of what is at stake in the fight over control of the nation’s government."
It is time to continue bold actions: Make the Electoral College irrelevant, eliminate the filibuster, pass voting legislation to make gerrymandering illegal, etc. All of these things are possible. With eight years of Biden we can make Republicans a thing of the past.
We must not be timid. As the professor writes,"In America, the two very different responses to the pandemic have given us a powerful education in government activism. 'For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed,' Biden said, 'And we have seen the tragic cost of that failure….'"
I am just going to sit here and breathe in some of your optimism. I tend to be gloomy about the prospects of making these changes. The deck is so stacked against us... Deep breath....
Reid look what we did in GA. The deck was stacked there. I, incredibly cheap bastard that I am, gave more money to Fairfight than I gave away during the entire 2020 election cycle. We can repeat this. And I for one plan to provide lemonade and quiche to voters in The longest voting line I can find in the Peach State.
Hi Reid - It is just sunny optimism on my part, only spotting a path. I firmly believe if we don't get rid of the filibuster, McConnell will at his first chance. I believe, too, that the reason they are block voting is to say in the end, we knew Biden was not really president.
I think it helps to keep repeating such messages as often as we can. There are millions who don’t read LFAA. It’s one way to push back against the PUTIN/KOCH/GOP/FOX propaganda raining down on so many every damn day
Influenza is with the world every year, all the time, and it's not going away in seasons but travelling round the world evolving as it goes. The world is round, it comes back. It has had massive peaks such as the 1918 epidemic and again with the Hong Kong Flu in 1968. Each year the vaccine for Europe, which takes 6 months to develop, is based-upon the "beast" as it passed through Australia the previous summer. This year we have hardly heard about influenza! The beast hasn't gone away but people are taking precautions by washing their hands frequently, adopting masks, practicing "social distancing and limiting the size and scope of gatherings. The beast has largely been tamed and we take it in our stride. We will learn to do likewise with the Covid, mostly master it and get on with our lives.
What we have most clearly to control better is the panic created around the epidemic. Panic leads to chaos and very bad decision-making. The French government and many other such administrations in the Western World accerbated the panic, creating fear and other psychoses in the people and chaos in their response to the challenge. They screwed up on the mask question; saying first that they were dangerous, then unnecessary before admitting that they had destroyed all their safety stocks (1B masks!), they screwed up the testing program....they had no tests, they failed appallingly at tracing the contacts of those infected, they canned programs to test and validate viral infection drugs that might help as they were selling an "only vaccines can do the job" message....but no french company could produce, masks, tests or vaccines. Now they are screwing up the vaccine program by starting with an insistence that Europe handles it...not them and then poo-pooing the idea of mass vaccination centres.
Despite this government, with dedicated hospital workers of all sorts and the people's perseverance and courage we are beating the bug down to a level where it can be "managed" in the future as it will not now be going away entirely. Fortunately our "Nov 3" in May 2022!
I can’t speak for France Stuart, but, in the US our previous administration saw Covid purely as a political problem. Every action or inaction was driven by political gamesmanship, not public health. They effectively threw paper towels at the states and told them to clean up the mess.
Residue from the initial mixed messaging and misinformation still taints our understanding today. Masks and social distancing have become political footballs instead of lifesaving strategies. Vaccines have been misrepresented by those who want to stoke fear and hobble the Biden administration.
Bizarrely, the only adults in the room during the previous administration were businesses who understood that their survival required getting the virus under control and protecting their employees. Large grocery and big box chains required masks when government wouldn’t. Meanwhile meat packing plants and nursing homes, who were barred from public scrutiny, provided little PPE for workers many of whom came to work sick out of necessity. These businesses became hotbeds of infection.
Even CDC & WHO guidelines have been woefully inadequate. Hospitals developed their own protocols to protect their employees from aerosol transmission. They realized that N95 masks, let alone surgical masks were not adequate for healthcare workers spending time in the same room with Covid patients. The CDC still hasn’t adequately updated guidelines.
And your likely correct that Covid won’t go away. But, unlike the old “beast” it may not be so easily managed. In many ways it’s still far more deadly and insidious than seasonal Flu with debilitating long term effects for many survivors. Virologists have concluded that the dramatic drop in flu cases is not only due to masks & hygiene, but, also lack of air travel which is its normal vector in modern times.
Biden is working hard to fix what is broken, but, 4 years can’t rebuild what’s been dismantled over the last 50. Covid 19 is a metaphor for our vulnerability as well as an actual killer. It should have brought us together, it didn’t.
I prefer to see the signs of hope and rebirth that are emerging as more and more of us are vaccinated and life starts to look more normal. This I attribute to Biden’s leadership. Former guy spent the first 3 years trying to dismantle government in efforts to create his own form of dictatorship. Then he lied from the getgo about the virus. Even if he realized that this pandemic required federal leadership, he would have been incompetent to make it happen partly because he surrounded himself with other self-serving incompetents. We have many smart and hardworking members of Biden’s team in the act of repairing the colossal damage.
My optimism is tempered by what’s happening in my state. The former guy still controls much of his party. Here in Florida, he’s king. All attempts to appear fair and reasonable have been cast off as “cancel culture”.
Doesn't it look, too, as though Orangepeel Man thought, like Bolsonaro, that Covid-19 would mainly kill off the poor who didn't count for him? Apart from that weird right-wingnut superstition that individuals are so separate that we don't share the same air along with what it carries.
Yes, I used the word "poor" as something of a catch-all for those to whose fate the man's most indifferent.
Having said which, surely the only relevance we can now accord him is that with which the law will take an interest. Now it's their dirty job to sort through the smut and, it is to be hoped, act on it before those with very short memories have completely forgotten what -- in any case -- they never understood. Meanwhile, the beasts move freely among us.
You were good enough to thank me for being interested in the mechanics of deception and self-deception -- but how could anyone with a care for truth, justice and the fate of posterity NOT care?
I know it's easier to see the problems at home than elsewhere but polticians in Europe would give Trump a good run for his money in the covid stakes. Here they acted badly and were seen to do so rather than standing aside. Now everything they do is highly political as they are both afraid of getting thrown out on their ears AND of judicial review and retribution. What worked best in the first lockdown was the hospital doctors reaching across "boundaries" to colleagues to solve problems...thus totally ignoting the administraters and the idiot politicians!
Covid is different because of its long term effects on our health, which remains to be evaluated and recognized. The main panic seems to be ignorant peoples fear of needles being stuck in ones arm, and their response is to buy a gun and tear down the federal government. I hope the election in France doesn’t go Nazi as in Poland.
The approach of the government is generating the panic here. Their nightly Press Conference was to announce the days death toll for instance...echoes of prime time news coverage of the "bodybags" coming home from Vietnam. They have dithered constantly over lockdowns, curfews, travel restrictions etc chopping and changing the rules to end up with "smoke and mirrors" without the shadow of a policeman to enforce whatever and which increasingly no one follows. The confidence of the people in the government has disappeared down the drain and the credibility of the politicians with it. Neither the administrative machine nor its leaders have a clue what to do. Since the first "surge" last april we have had the constant theme about not overwhelming the essential hospital services while sending elderly sufferers to the retirement homes ostensibly to ease congesture but in reality to decimate (inadvertently of course...they don't think) the residents. Over the last 20 years the successive governments have been using the hospitals as punching balls for cuts to public spending. Since last march no governmental effort has been expended to create new covid treatment capacity in the hospitals. The public sector refuses to use capacity in private medical facilities...against their principles!
When you look at the vaccines...some people are afraid of needles but others are wary because of the governments awful past performance in imposing vaccines that have subsequently been banned and others that are potentially extremely difficult for babies to bear. The government has contributed also with its dithering over Astra Zeneca and long delays in okaying any of the vaccines ...prudence!...while the Uk finally gets something right.
In this country the government is lucky that only the criminals know how to acquire illegal hand guns and military style weapons.
We don't want to tear down the government but to totally change the machinery that supports its expensive inaction and incompetence so that it works for the people and not just for itself.
Canada has screwed up somewhat same as France in managing the pandemic and vaccinations. And we have idiots lobbying for American style gun laws and availability. Does New Zealand have room for 350 million refugees?
Were there is space, there is lower population density...greater distance from neighbours...less chance or will to understand the other! However the reverse is not necessarily true at the extremes where people live on top of each other. In the middle somewhere is distinctly preferrable.
There is the matter of uneven population distribution. US residents are too bunched up in some places, and too widely spaced in others. Still, some more goodwill always helps.
Minimum wealth requirement $40,000 but a great deal of reticence to taking on the potential health expense of those "getting on a bit" when you haven't previously contributed to their system! My mother tried to go to Australia to join my sister and her at age of 86 but was refused there for that reason. On the question of space, best ask the Maoris about that. Its their islands!
They want people who can make a positive contribution from day 1. They are of course chosey...who wounld't be when the ultra rich are beating a path to their door as the last remaining safe haven. They are very good at rugby, have a lot of sheep...and have also had a mega gun massacre in Christchurch a while ago. ...but they have a charming and very effective Prime Minister....no covid during her watch!
There are expats in NZ, but also strict requirements for permanent residence, keeping the numbers low. Kiwis are very aware that their country is attractive and so are wary of a too-large influx. This became a priority as large numbers of Asians sought entry and refuge from late-20C crises. (Check the map for proximity to Southeast Asia, a permanent source of concern.) I don't blame them right now, but there is a darker aspect: White Australia and White NZ policies and sentiments. For over 100 years NZ and especially Aus rigorously excluded Asian migrants. They didn't mind exploiting Pacific Islanders kidnapped by "blackbirders."
An increasingly all pervasive feeling wherever you roam....starting ostensibly if you like a couple of years ago.....after building continuously over the past 40 years....with the initial "gilets jaunes"... who were ordinary people who were fed up of not being listened to and governed according to the whims and needs of a certain Parisian clique whose only contact with the rest of France is a visit to their secondary residence or to the "family seat" still occupied by their parents.
Wages have not increased in real terms in a very long time here and the people have the impression that they are all being progressivley screwed down to "minimum wage". Profits however were growing and doing very well thank you pre-covid while massive stocks of capital are still held offshore owing to the shock of the Socialist Party with Hollande winning the 2012 Presidentials and to the horrendous French Tax System in general which both discourages investment and facilitates capital flight and deprives thus the economy of "oxygen" and only the workers and the small businesses pay the price.
No party can currently count on scraping up more than 20-25 % of the vote and most are actually closer to 10%. As nobody is actually showing they care the debate radicalizes....and gets a great deal more attention. We'll see!
Just curious - is “ a certain Parisian clique whose only contact with the rest of France is a visit to their secondary residence or to the "family seat" still occupied by their parents.” ...the old royal families?
Fortunately very far from the mark. The clique are what is now referred to as the "anywheres" as they are all business, highly commerce school/university educated and as at home in New York as in London or Paris...no roots there, don't need them. Some take the banking /finance route, others the "ENA certification" and administrative power...but none venture out to talk to the real people...the "somewheres" .
Interesting the fear of needles. The needle used with Covid is about as fine as a mosquito’s proboscis. I feel most people’s reluctance is part and parcel of our culture wars.
A friend of mine, who by the way, didn't want to get the vaccine (I changed her mind) had one of her friends of 50+ years tell her that she now has dead babies floating around in her blood. My friend was appalled by this. You see, I told her what I knew about the Pfizer vaccine and told her to do more research, which she did. So she told her friend about what she learned, but her friend wasn't having any of it.
So now she doesn't know how she can handle being friends with someone who is telling her what a lot of Christians have told me over the years, you are going to hell.
All I know is that you can try to reason with people but if it gets to the point where conspiracy theories or just plain stupidity is what you deal with, it just isn't worth it.
Had to part ways with my best friend of over 40 years due to her anger and stupidity. Don't have time to deal with that.
I know that feeling of losing friends over their adherence to conspiracy theories. What is worse, in my mind, are the ones who aren't extremely fringe, but the ones who are reasonable and still buy into conspiracy "lite" with their "right" wing myopia.
It is a pity indeed. We do not forceJehovah’s witnesses to take blood, and we are amazed when we watch a believer die for their cause. This is a choice they make and they have the option to receive blood to prevent their demise until they die. They also put no one at risk for their choices. The folly of not being vaccinated is one’s impending doom can not be reversed by choice if one gets really 😷 sick. And one puts others at risk, with what appears to be risky behavior. Wear a 😷! Get vaccinated. Help the herd.
Kudos to you for taking the time and making the effort to re-educate your friend. If we can change the mind of even one person, we have done a good thing.
I’ve had to read it over the past several years. My work brought me to that. The reading alone is very demanding for anyone who’s concerned with the substance that lies behind words.
I agree with the utter futility of trying to open some very closed minds. I hate wasting time and energy. You never know what will work someday for people who have drunk the kool aid. Many I’m afraid will never know the difference between fantasy and reality.
It is horrifying to read these true stories. Hearing it from a subscriber, knowing how close this societal calamity is had a physical impact on me. How close these hallucinations are, such as the babies in our blood, they are here. My mind jumped to some connection with an extreme anti-abortion movement. It was the mind jumping, I am not reporting it as news.
I wish the media would quit showing people getting shots with what appears to be long needles that take a long time to insert in the arm and a long time to inject. That only exacerbates peoples' fears about getting the shot if they are needle wary anyway, but showing the reality isn't nearly as riveting. The needle is indeed very fine and when I got both my shots, they were done before I even realized they had injected me.
I agree Pamela! I was dreading the appointment and when she said, ok just sit here for 15 minutes to be sure you have no reaction, I was like “ What? You’re done???!!!”
I was surprised too at how I didn't feel a thing until the chills and fever the next day. I'm not looking forward to the second shot if that's how I reacted to the first one...
when I got my second shot other than a slightly sore arm all I had the next day was feeling as though I hadn't slept. Hope your second shot goes better.
Same here. I am terrified of "needles" (+ PTSD after an awful hospital experience)... but the Covid vaccine was completely painless. After effects from shot #1 were minimal... actually looking forward to #2 and just hoping I don't have a bad reaction.
Covid is different from common flu, but its very similar to how the body responds to new or novel Flu as we have learned from the 1918 Pandemic. And yes, agree, there are long term effects researchers continue to discover.
Influenza virus is always mutating, thank Birds, and Pigs, and Horses for that, these are the endemic populations where new influenza virus continue their evolution/mutations. The danger that lurks with the flu is that its RNA is less stable than most viruses and as it is endemic mostly to wild migratory birds, so it has a population where it can lay dormant ( to us) and continue to mutate (evolve) in the wild. So it remains a challenge as we wont know how serious the next influenza outbreak could be till a new version jumps from the wild to humans and spreads globally. When a virus mutates its proteins so much, that our immune systems cant recognize it, that is when an hyper immune response occurs ( cytokine storm happens in the lungs) and hospitals fill.
Only government funding the WHO and the CDC to conduct the necessary surveillance around the world to get early warning of outbreaks to prevent pandemics. ( we can thank Agent Orange for disbanding our Pandemic Response Teams and process at the National Security level in 2017). Infection disease surveillance requires cooperation from all governments to accomplish. I don't think China has done all it can, or all it could to really help this pandemic. We need to "trust but verify" with emergent infectious diseases. Infectious diseases are a true threat to our National Security. China needs to be more open to the WHO and CDC. China has not let the WHO nor CDC investigate fully to find the origin and tell the story (truth). By being uncooperative they have only sewn distrust and dismay, breeding grounds for conspiracy. This has played a role here with the anti vax crowd, that is going to prolong this pandemic, and it never should have.
To understand the Pandemic of 1918, is to understand what and how everything went wrong in 2020. I don't think most could understand 1918 without reading, "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry, Tulane History.
Ted, our mono cultures of corn, wine grapes, cows, turkeys, chickens etc, are crops vulnerable to viral infestations because of both proximity and singularity. The greatest crop we are growing is ourselves. We will be foolish indeed if we ignore the need for strong public health. Period dot.
Very valuable, thanks Ted. I think a lot of people need to grow more fearful, enough to change their behavior, for the sake of public and planetary health.
Live animal markets are a crucial part of global disease risk. Such sites, especially those in Africa and Asia, are hazards not so much in themselves, but because that's where many Newly Emerging Diseases emerge. NEDs develop and first mutate there, the interface where humans meet live animals and, just as bad, where we encounter freshly slaughtered beasts. Effective regulation must be part of any successful global anti-disease strategy.
Koch supported cattlemen are currently rounding up all the wild Mustangs to export for meat so they can use public lands to raise more cattle. The Buteau of Land Management is carrying out historectomies without anesthetics on mares, with such impunity one would think it’s an act designed to overwhelm and suppress what’s left of America’s soul. I’ve never been a worst abuse of horses. This is tRump card in the race to degrade US morale.
Ted, I don't have a chance on most days to read many comments. I am glad that I took a little time tonight to read a few. Your comment above was very interesting to me. I hope that you will continue to share medical/scientific information with us. Do you know about the genetic research that is being done now regarding Covid? My sense of it is that researchers are trying to learn which people are most vulnerable to serious health consequences once they have contracted the infection, such as their blood type, etc., and which treatments could be most effective.
And on the political question concerning the hard-right RF (Marine Le Pen) only about a quater of her support actually thinks that she is good for anything.....the other 3/4 just think the other idiots are listening to anything they say. That's why she is getting the ratings that say she might win. Unfortunately the only thing certain for the time being is that the current bunch of chumps will be joining the queues of unemployed. Otherwise, wherever you look, mediocrity abounds. It's a dreadful sight to see the dross on all sides that thinks it has a chance of ruling the roost.
Watching Marine Le Pen’s dad on TV 37 years ago—out of pure, disinterested curiosity, I left my political preferences outside the door—gave me a violent headache. I had to give up and lie down on the grass outside. But when I felt better and went back in, he was still speaking (and yes, he had the gift of the gab). Ah good, so I’ll hear more…
No way. This time, headache came with nausea.
Back into the garden… All gone.
May 2017: Marine Le Pen “debating” Emmanuel Macron.
This time I was fool enough to follow her ridiculous performance. It didn’t even have the all-in-wrestler’s show-off style of Agent Orange circling around poor Hillary Clinton. And this time, I was even more stupid. I lost my cool… For which stupidity I paid the price. Not just a headache… blood pressure soared to heights unknown before or since … and wouldn’t come back down to normal for several weeks… until I got a good shiatsu treatment from a friend in Madrid.
Initially, I didn’t understand these things. I’m no angel but… well, it’s pretty plain by now what kind of people we’re dealing with here. Niece is a politician version of DT’s last addition to the Supreme Court (the French term for her ilk being “a holy water frog”). They should add a line to the Litany to protect us from this bunch and their transatlantic counterparts...
Stuart Thank you for the rundown on the situation in France. I have been curious on other countries approach (beyond what I read in the NYT) - your boots on the ground readout is far more insightful. I’m in the Northeast and got my J&J vaccine yesterday - largely because our city made the vaccine available to youth sports coaches. I am so grateful and have had NO reaction except a great night of sleep.
Stuart, the situation in France, which I have been reading about in the English-language press, but my brother-in-law (beau frére!) does avidly in the French press, sounds awful. What is also interesting is that Sarkozy seems to be using this crisis as an opportunity to do all kinds of social engineering as well, especially in terms of condemning academic topics such as Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory as "American invasions" into French academia. I don't understand the reasoning behind this at all.
Please see: The Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropogy, edited by Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer.
Page 463:
“The word race was used by the English and other colonists justifying abuse and robbing the people in their colonies. The use of the word race became associated with cranial studies in the 1830s and 1840s when Samuel Morton “proved “ the larger brain size, and therefore superiority of Whites over other races. Only in 1977 did biologist Stephen Jay reanalalyze the data and discovered that Morton’s overt racists bias had made mistakes in the measurements.”
Page 464
“Modern anthropologists use “ethnicity” to express process of cultural identification.”
The USA is a mass culture. It has lots of sub-cultures, life styles, each with their own traditions and each may include many skin colors.
OK, I hope I haven’t bored you too much. It’s hard for me to find English books here in the backwoods of Portugal. I’m sure there are many more that can back me up. I was so interested in your discussion, I couldn’t resist sticking my nose in. To be silent is to be aquiesent.
Amazon allows the starving mind to be fed and survive..in English...in our foreign lands.
it's amazing the extent to which the merchant adventurers went to justify their "rape and pillage" in colonial development and empire building days. It doesn't just apply to Africa etc as you so rightly point out. Go West young man!
We came out of lockdown on 7 April to avoid too jovial student happenings during Easter week. We had to wear masks everywhere out of the house, could only go to essencial services, not church, had to be on our way home by 1pm (cops at all roundabouts checking addresses on our i.d., with extremely high fines for non-compliance. The Portuguese are mostly sensible about wearing masks, etc.They are acutely aware of having a comparatively small population and wish to protect it.
It's almost as if countries around the world are experimenting to see which can come up with the newest and most novel way to govern poorly. Hard to compete with DJT, but Bolsonaro, for one, is giving him a run for his money. Sarkozy appears downright competent in comparison. We live in interesting times. New Zealand and Germany appear to me to be competently run, and the Nordic countries are doing OK. But it's hard to come up with any other governments doing well.
Leave us not forget PM Johnson in the UK as another poster-child for inept government. My friends and colleagues there are profoundly worried about life in the throes of Brexit. In my sphere, performing artists there are being hammered with tons of rules and regulations, and their work, already sidelined because of Covid, is in serious danger of totally drying up. Many have had to try and re-define themselves and find other avenues to get by on. Some I know managed to re-locate to mainland Europe (before things shut down) and haven't regretted it. Johnson is a joke and, to hear them tell it, he is driving the country into the ground. All for this silly idea of somehow returning the UK to its former glory days. What an empty promise that has turned out to be.
I think you meant the book "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz. It's in paperback so not exorbitantly priced. The other "Spying on the South" was his last book before his untimely death in 2019. Here's his website
Brexit.....Silly idea unfortunately supported by a majority of the population and looking at the abysmal functionning of the EU one can understand them. The artists that "fled" to Europe have new set of problems as they are non-european workers...a different kettle of fish if you didn't have a few years residency prior to brexit .... they sought to avoid the visa and work-permits intricacies with which Brussels is now plaguing those who didn't and are called to perform in the EU.
Johnson is popular again because his vaccination effort "was up to snuff".....and his political opposition is wallowing in the depths of mediocrity. Could chznge with his next tomfoolery!
Sarkozy was very competent...not so Micron despite getting the formers advice in private. NZ had a very effective, decisive leader and did very well. German health system is managed by the Regional Governments...the Länder...and not Mrs Merkel....there might be something there! Closer to the people perhaps?
Firstly, Sarkozy hasn't been President for 9 years...its Macron...or Micron now that we know him better. Secondly, the intersectionality Studies movements etc started initially, i seem to recollect, with french academics that had set up in US Universities. It's being imported into Britain too. Thirdly, they have been taken over on the streets here by many possibly doubtful radical organizations and by academic politics by student unions and staff in Sociology etc departments and they are acting in a highly autocratic manner...very clear case of "cancel culture" i'm afraid pushing out any contradiction. The government, which controls the universities sees this as a uniquely ideological deviation from academic pursuits and is moaning without doing very much...as they are afraid of being labeled "racist" . Not much free speech i'm afraid.
Sorry--Macron of course. It's super early in the morning here and I am stuck in Zoom conference sessions all weekend so my brain is not functioning all that well!. Actually intersectionality is a term coined by the US sociologist Kimberlé Crenshaw, which she adopted as an approach to issues of race and gender when she was a doctoral student. If you read her work, as well as Patricia Hill Collins's work on intersectionality, you will see that it is an important way of presenting the unique ways that race, gender, social class, religion "intersect" to produce an individual's experience in the world. It has been watered down--perhaps deliberately by people who don't like to think of, for instance, Black and Brown women in the USA being particularly disadvantaged by the intersection of race and gender--but it really does have important things to say. And Crenshaw is one of the most interesting scholars out there today in feminist (as a generic term that includes intersectionality, queer theory, etc) theory.
Unfortunately this leads to seeing a population as a collection of communities which disturbs me. It tends in my mind to seperate people and pit them against each other when we should be collectively striving to render justice in society and understand our history. We have enough difficulties here with the islamic radicals effectively and violently ceceding their neighbouhood from the nation.
I much prefer to consider people as part of a whole and not because they are part of a ?isible" minority. We're all in this together....even the "white european male" .
Actually, in my experience it has the opposite effect. The recognition that, say, a gay person is not JUST a gay person but is also in many cases also Black and female emphasizes that we can't generalize about a category of person but must take each one as an individual. Of course, an even more cogent view of intersectionality is reflected in MLK's statement that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Yes but will be thrown out of court at some point......as with everything else they have tried to smear him with. These are the weapons that the system uses to stop people they don't like getting power.
It all seems like such a waste of energy. My French relatives would always complain or disparage of whoever was in power almost like a national taunting sport.
Being a senior I was able to be vaccinated in February and am very thankful for that. My older son got his first shot just over a week ago, his wife (a bit younger) is still trying. Then there is Japan - a son and family live there. The vaccine roll out there makes states like Mississippi look good. They have approved just one vaccine for use - have not started to work on their own vaccine yet so are dependent upon imports. They have just started to roll out vaccination for health care workers and in a week or so make it available for seniors but the pace is very slow due to lack of vaccines and a reluctance on the part of the Japanese leadership (almost all elderly males) to come to grips with the reality of their situation. The virus is not going away - they may be an island and be able to keep non-Japanese residents out - but it is spreading internally. Yet in July they have the Olympics with athletes and support staff coming- and vaccination for them not required. There is little to nothing in the US press about this but will be come summer when Japan has a tidal wave of infections. The US does not have a monopoly on shortsighted national leadership. I write this not to excuse US shortsighted leadership under "45" but to say that stupidity about epidemics knows no international borders. And a country where the government is controlled by a sclerotic leadership that does not respond to public pressure can do immense harm by its inability to act quickly and understand that hope is not a solution.
It's not just national leadership that's stumbled in the US., states have not been ordering their full allotment of vaccine which impacts availability to those in need. The other thing I find puzzling is the ability for folks to sign up on multiple vaccine appointment registries, which are not linked to one another, including private healthcare providers, hospitals, state, county, VA, drugstore, Wal-Mart and then not cancel their other appointment requests once they've secured an appointment for their (1st) dose. (I know my MIL had registered on 4 sites. She did not cancel the other 3 until we asked her if she'd done so. It never occurred to her.)
Because of the distribution process in Yucatán my husband and are going to fly to the US for our vaccines. Counterintuitive, maybe. But for Mérida alone less than 200k vaccines were delivered to get the ball rolling for those over 60. As of 2021, the popultion is Mérida is 1,181,000 with approximately 11% over the age of 60. The vaccines are given (mostly) at neighborhood sites (good) but they are first come, first serve, no appointments - just queue up and wait out of doors to maybe get a jab (bad). Many folks have stood and waited for hours only to learn all the vaccines alotted to the site have been given. Today it's going to be 104° or more. As a redhead, you will never find me standing out of doors for an extended period of time for anything, ever.
Your description of the problem with people signing up on multiple sites and then failing to cancel is spot on. A friend tried repeatedly to sign up and was told "the waiting list is full" - only to learn that those who signed up failed to show up. It has been a source of much consternation. Fortunately, he finally managed to get his first shot, which does guarantee a date for the second shot. Lines here have been incredibly long and there have been literally DAYS when no vaccine was available at all within a 50 miles radius.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Looking through the lens of the Republican ideology that a strong central government should have no role to play in our society, it's no surprise that the previous administration handled the pandemic as they did. More's the pity that there seems to be strong support for this ideology as millions of Americans are reluctant to follow the advice to continue to mask, social distance, et cetera, let alone receive the vaccine. I wonder, however, if it would get more anti-vaxers on board if the Biden administration were to put out a statement crediting the previous administration for the success of Operation Warp Speed in producing these vaccines so quickly. Just a thought.
On a personal note, yesterday (Friday) a small impromptu "party" ensued during our 15-minute wait post-vaccine administration. It all got started when I asked the 80+-year-old wheelchair- bound woman how good her "driver" was as she was wheeled toward us. We attracted the attention of one volunteer who approached us, applauding our lively discourse. A good time was had by all, but sadly, there will be no reunion as no names or contact info was exchanged!
Hi Lynell, just a thought but the boss of Pfizer made it very clear when he announced the new vaccine after Trump's defeat that he had in no way benefited from money from Trump's program. So perhaps not all up to the then WH and OWS after all.
Thanks, Stuart. I just read about that and posted it elsewhere here. Without going into a deep dive, I was trying to figure out a way to get more people on board with taking the vaccine. My mistake!!
Honorable intent, Lynell. Since most of these anti-vaxers (or just nervous folks) aren't going to check a Pfizer or J&J source, I say no harm in claiming it. Could save a life or 2,000.
It's no secret that Johnson & Johnson has been having manufacturing difficulties. Although its Aug. 5 Operation Warp Speed contract says it expected to deliver 37 million doses by the end of March, that goal had shrunk to 20 million doses, as Dr. Richard Nettles, vice president of medical affairs for the company's pharmaceutical division, told a congressional subcommittee on Feb. 23. From NPR today.
However, this NY Times article (11/2020) elaborates on Pfizer participation: "Pfizer has distanced itself from Mr. Trump and Operation Warp Speed. In an interview on Sunday, Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said, 'We were never part of the Warp Speed,' adding, 'we have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone.'
"On Monday, a spokeswoman for Pfizer clarified that the company is part of Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential coronavirus vaccine."
Good morning, Lynell! Sounds like your "wait party" was a fabulous time. My wait parties were at the jail, hanging with deputies I've known for years but haven't seen for at least 5 years (including one whose child is transitioning female to male at age 18; I was the only co-worker he thought he could talk to when his son came to him about 7 years ago and told him who he was). My wife's wait was in the cab of the truck at the fairgrounds, but all the other vehicle occupants in our area were grinning and waving at one another.
The gods were with us, Daria. This morning's news reported that the vaccination site we visited yesterday is closed today and possibly tomorrow due to plumbing issues!
Morning Lynell!! It's early on the 11th for me. Sat 4/10 was the best weather day of the year. I ache a bit from 3 hours of volleyball, but we put the hurt on the other team too.
Sorry, one other thing. In the aftermath of the election, Donald Trump showed his true colors. As Americans were dying every day, he barely mentioned the Covid crisis. Instead, his focus was on pushing the Big Lie of election fraud. The blame for not calling him out on his narcissism falls squarely on his supporters' shoulders. His lack of character, integrity, honor and empathy meant nothing to millions of Americans, who chose to focus on his lies. Shame on them. Shame on us.
Your first two paragraphs had my blood pressure rise. Just the mere mention of Kushner and Navarro bring furor.
Grifters grift. If we have learned nothing else these horrid people wanted government out of their pockets but they helped themselves to money made off of our PPE equipment. The snide comment by Kushner, telling states that they were in their own, was so inhumane and cruel. I pray after the DOJ’s office finishes with going through the millions of papers they discovered, Kushner and Navarro will be held over a flame until they cry “uncle”. That really is my vision for any of the seditionists.
Biden is our guide. He has appointed competent people. We have to be grateful for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8j7ZeJrxqU
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand PM, has suspended travel from India.
IMHO, she is exemplary in her steadfast, intelligent leadership. Is there not one of her in France? Great Britain?
What does it take to inspire the people? To vote? To grow a country? Asking for a friend.
I'm afraid twe have no such luck! NZ is 2 islands. she shut it down and off from the world very early and caught the bug napping. She has done the same every time she has faced a rare imported case since. No messing with the lady.
Britain is an island but dithered and France refused to shut borders and test and quarantine any arrivals. We got what we deserved.
Pity, no one deserves obnoxiously poor leadership. I find this lack on the part of our politicians to be criminal.
That's what you get when people start to consider politics a career rathe than a vocation to serve.
Ah yes — a vocation. That would require a world view of “No man is an island sufficient unto himself”, right?
Truth.
We need to remember and remind often, especially as 2022 rolls around: Republicans Lying, Americans Dying:/
Agree, Karen. Please repost this regularly!
Who disagrees with that? The criminals do that is who.
Come on Stuart. Who deserves death by disease? Death because of ignorance? Death because of poor judgement? No one, but it does happen and there is no dithering about that.
Will we do better next time and there will be a next time? Maybe is the only answer I can see. In fact, I can still see the past, my past. I admit to having had the following diseases: measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, pnuemonia, whooping cough and an assortment of broken bones. All of these were when I was a child.
My children had none of these, except for the broken bones. That is an improvement over my generation and those before me.
We are on the edge of medical miracles. They have happened and are happening now.
These things are what we deserve. The comes and goes. Eventually, we will defeat those other things that come our way in the form of diseases.
Perfection, no, but better, yes.
You are so right that diseases caught us napping. Some of us are still asleep, but more of us are awakening. With awareness comes knowledge. With knowledge comes understanding. With understanding come wisdom.
The goal is to be wise enough to use our awareness, knowledge and understanding to do what will benefit us, our families and neighbors as well as people we have never met, nor will meet.
World's greatest leader. New Zealand, please annex us.
I was in NZ last year, returning to the US on March 12, just as everything was shutting down. Jacinda (as my NZ relatives refer to her) gave online updates during their initial shutdown to reassure citizens and explain the rationale behind the decisions being made. She was an inspiring example of calm, confident, science-driven leadership.
A common enemy.
Biden is our guide into the next decade of corporatocracy.
Consider the alternatives. Thanks but no thanks.
Yeah agreed. Still sucks though.
True
Who’s better ?
I didn’t say anyone was, especially at this point since the election is over. It is obnoxious though on this site that you can’t say anything negative about Biden without getting raked over the coals. I know everyone here thinks he is some kind of second coming of FDR but sorry to say that is just not the case. FDR would have pushed for Medicare for all and a much larger jobs guarantee.
FDR came to the Presidency after the shock of the ‘29 Crash in the bottom of the depression, crippled, with a brilliant wife, comparisons always break down, but FDRs following was a higher percentage of the population. Bidens only been in office a few months. Let’s see what he does next.
It is a good thing to remember how incompetent the previous administration really was. (Paul Krugman has an essay in a similar vein about the 2017 tax cuts in the OpEd page of today's NY Times.)
There really are things, very necessary things, only government can do. Dealing with a national pandemic probably tops the list.
Yes: and deplorable that the Biden Transition Team was blocked from information to plan, target and speed his fledgling administration's efforts.
I had forgotten about that cruel and stupid policy. There was so much about those terrible years that was cruel and stupid that details get forgotten.
Thank you for the reminder.
Not just a cruel and stupid policy, but also underlying desperation that the chaotic, ineffective, destructive (and sometimes completely absent) “government” under the previous occupant of the WH would be discovered. And eventually it was.
More to come, no doubt, re incompetence and cruelty of the last administration. I consoled two children along the way imploring them to stay the course at Dept of State and DOJ. As I explained, we need good people in place to recover from the atrocities committed.
Yes, horrific incompetence. I knew I was forgetting an adjective. I agree.
I imagine that as a difficult challenge. Thank you! Without good and effective worker bees holding up Justice and Diplomacy how can we ever hold the crooks accountable or right the ship? 🙏
They stayed and I am immensely proud of both of them!
Are you speaking of young adults? Who possibly had responsible jobs at the agencies you are bringing up?
Well, my prosecutor son is 40 and my FSO daughter 37. Does that make them "young" adults? Some would say yes. I would say they are in the prime of their career!
And yet in 2024 a Trump sycophant will make a formidable opponent for Biden. Too many states are tilting the table to favor a Republican victory.
This is why I keep rattling the cage re Floriduh's 2022 Governor's race. Ron DeSantis is an iDJT sycophant if there ever was one. He must be defeated and replaced with Democrat to turn Florida around. We'll need much support from around the country to make this happen.
We need to do everything we can to get rid of DeSantis, Rubio and Rick Scott. DeSantis has screwed up this state even more than when he assumed office. And he recently received his COVID shot without any publicity. It would have gone a long way to encourage his followers to do so as well, but instead he covers his eyes and says everything is fine. And, while we are at it, we have to somehow get rid of the Republican state legislators. They are about to pass that hideous bill which makes protesting in public (group more than 3) subject to arrest.
"That hideous bill which makes protesting in public (group more than 3) subject to arrest".
And why not reduce the group to 1 like Putin's zombie Duma? Like Lukashenko... Like Hitler, like Stalin, like Mao, come to think of it...
Then set the goons on any single human who's foolish enough to stand out of line to batter the brains out of him.
Have you no means to deal with common gangsters who've gotten themselves into positions of authority?
While there's still time...
That’s why I’m calling every day this week. STOP these FASCISTS NOW!
Yes!
Shades of 60 years of dictator Salazar in Portugalunyil the Carnation Revolution of 1974!
Can it be done? Who is Florida's Stacey Abrams?
Kelly, we’ve got your back!
Thanks for making my day!
Yes, we do!
Perhaps. A lot can happen between now and 2024, most importantly HR 1 and major infrastructure legislation. To me, the mid-term 2022 election is the very big deal. If the pandemic has been tamed and the above legislation has been enacted, I think the Democrats have a better than even chance of keeping their congressional majorities. That would be immense.
Right now the public face of the Republican Party is Matt Gaetz.
With the filibuster staying in its current form, see Manchin, HR1 is going nowhere.
Six months from now it will be “Matt who?”
As this article points out, we, as a nation, are known for our short memory.
I wish I could think of solid reasons why the Dems will hold the House in midterms, but I can’t. Trump has a stranglehold on his followers.
If the House is lost, the first order of business will to impeach Biden. Not once, but twice; just like Trump was impeached twice. Revenge politics at its worst.
For heaven's sake, is your country so incapable of dealing with major criminals?
I know nothing of the law in your country, but in the US, no matter how serious the allegations may be, the accused is given the presumption of innocence. See the current Chauvin trial.
The presumption of innocence is not in question.
What is in question is a regime so constipated that seditious conspirators can continue their activities without let or hindrance.
Suchlike have gotten away with plenty in my country too... likewise because our constitutional arrangements are no longer adequate to protect us from mountebanks and worse.
At this point, it appears at least 40% approve of lies and thievery. I don’t see how anyone can argue with that point?
40% of who? By the way who took the poll matters.
In bad economic times, evil gets an easy foothold. Desperate people will take risks. The mafias are always there just under the surface.
I know. Don't we all? But I used the word "major" for individuals like those who've brought the "Cupola" under the cupola of the Capitol.
Those who'll bring discredit to normal "business" of that order.
No, we send them to Mar A Lago for training. The only trouble is that the trainers are incompetent who lie, cheat and steal.
Just a note: his followers are a vocal minority. They lost the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Not a good !
A minority only 74 million strong and unfortunately we haven’t yet figured out a way to feed people the truth for breakfast, lunch and dinner
All this travesty will be forgotten, and the repubs will find something more to lie about. The Dems need to keep reminding: Republicans Lying, Americans Dying (and they continue to do worse than that)...
Right now that pubic face is self destructing. Challenging Cheney on her own home turf will end up with both R’s and D’Souza burying him for his peckerdilloes.
But we will have some Josh Hawley type sycophant stepping up to take 45’s place on the podium. Might even be Marjorie Taylor Greene.
but the day is young.... a few months from now, when the high marks for Biden will keep rolling in... 'they' will see....the economy will heal, slowly at first, but then it will become bigger and better, ...the infrastructure boom will roll out... jobs reports will look better and better...the new dawn will just keep rising, and I don't think they will have a leg to stand on...
This will certainly be true so long as we continue to blame Trump for the next four years for any failure to meet the urgent needs of the poor.
Krugman's column not only aims at those tax cuts, but attacks the real problem, legal "tax avoidance."
Jacob to which column do you refer?
Paul Krugman had two opinion pieces in the NYT on April 9. One dealt with the looming defeat of democracy here because of State voter repression laws and the other, a reprint from his 'newsletter' dealt with taxes. I referred to the latter. BetsyC refers to that column below.
WaPo had a Krugman "wonkish" OP ed column yesterday.
His influence will last more than 4 years. It will eventually fade into the smoke of history.
Absolutely— if there was ever a problem that needed federal leadership it is and was this pandemic. We are most fortunate to have a president who understands this and is forging ahead.
"But what it [the 2020 pandemic] has taught us about government is important to remember."
It certainly is. When I saw Kushner's name again, I was reminded just how successful Trump's family was in looting the country during the pandemic and during Trump's entire term of office. I want to see Jarvanka (Jared + Ivanka) held to account for all the money they made during Trump's time in office. I'm sure Trump delayed telling the public about Covid in order to use the time figuring out how his family could make a fortune off of it.
Time to bring in the forensic accountants.
I hope we do not forget Kushner’s immorality and criminal tendencies as time passes. He’s young and could re-emerge in government since he’s so arrogant.
They are already on the AG's team in NYC pouring over the finacial archives;
Thinking about the loss of the vote to unionize at Amazon and President Biden’s plea to keep wearing masks, I’m wondering if the former failed 45, the iDJT, and his followers have turned into smarmy 2 year olds saying “You’re not the boss of me.” The mass murderer should be ashamed to show his face. I recently watched the outstanding Ken Burns film on Mark Twain (Amazon Prime) who was embarrassed that he had to declare bankruptcy and worked years to repay all his debts. Before his publishing company failed, General Grant’s autobiography was Clemens’ biggest moneymaker. Now our democracy is threatened by a bully who declared bankruptcy 6 times, left thousands unpaid, and said not paying taxes makes him smart. Fauci and others needed protection against threats by bullies. Biden’s election should have given him setup time and money to form a new government but he was shut out for almost three months. He has done an amazing job since January 20 righting the wrongs Republicans would like us to forget. Thank you HCR and other historians for keeping truth alive. Let’s do our part!
I'm loving "iDJT" as I struggle as many do to avoid using the former president's name. I was slow on the uptake, thinking at first it was a typo! I prefer "idgit" to "idiot" so "iDJT" fits right in with my style. Consider it adopted!
Very succinct! Thanks.
I'm still fond of "Der Pu$$enGropenFuhrer."
Delirium J. Tremens
A proud RINQ
?
Republican in Name Qanon. RIHO - is Republican in name only.
I had never noticed how the initials fit until I saw it in capitals. Apologies to the person on this list who originated it. Please show yourself and take a bow.
Although I have been using it frequently especially on FB, I can’t claim making it up. I try to rotate monikers.
iDJT is going to stick. Nice one Kelly!
I repeated it from Gigi above. I love it!
Alabama is a very tough nut for unions to crack. It's a right-to-work state, the hallmark of which is that no one is actually guaranteed a job. Bah.
Still, I think that soon enough there will be a breakthrough at an Amazon facility somewhere else, in a more hospitable organizing environment. A successful union drive in the heart of the global online economy could be a turning point in putting movement back in the labor movement.
As for Grant, the general and president of freedom, it was long rumored that his Memoirs were brilliant because Twain actually wrote the majority. Not so. The same brilliance also appears in Grant's letters, wartime dispatches and orders. It's unmistakably the same level of talent.
I was born & raised in Alabama, daughter of URW Local 351. We had many parades in Tuscaloosa, maybe 5 a year? Just a guess. High School Bands from all over West Alabama joined in. The Milliin Dollar Band from UA often participated. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, floats galore. The biggest parade of the year was the Labor Day Parade. It was an all day event for many. The year Gulf States Paper Corp. closed the paper mill was the beginning of the end to union strength, at least in Tuscaloosa. The owner told striking workers that he would close the plant before giving them what they wanted. The history buffs among you might enjoy this piece about it.
Defender of Robber Barons Who Spends Like a King https://nyti.ms/1kjrijh
Thank you for your response. I was feeling that President Biden’s mention of the union vote was what turned it negative. There are so many nasty lying trolls out there, from Fox News on down, or rather, on up. I’m looking forward to reading Grant. My high school history teacher called him Useless and now I’m wondering why.
Thank you too, Gigi. Grant's "Personal Memoirs" are very detailed, and only the annotated edition released about the same time as Chernow's biography has adequate maps to ID numerous place names. It takes effort to read, but may be worth it. Chernow's "Grant" is among the great American biogs; you may prefer to start there. Happy reading.
Its pretty crazy to see "Sado Populism" at work. When people vote against their own long term interest. I agree.
There is something similar to voting not to unionize, and refusing to mask and vaccinate. I've thought that we need better communications from the CDC to pull at peoples heart strings to change their behavior. Biden needs a stronger/better PR campaign to communicate to the masses. Biden Admin needs to fund more convincing messages for public health. We needed to do this from the start and are not. I still don't think we are communicating effectively to change behavior, and until we do, this pandemic will go to extra innings.
This is how the admin could pull harder on the heart strings of all Americans, its a messaging ad of empathy from Cleveland Clinic....but it would be an easy format to adjust to promote masks and vax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8
Governments are only as good or bad as the people elected to run them. This should be our new national motto.
Yes! Pass S1, S4. 561,956 reasons and counting. Never Forget. ❤️🤍💙
Never forget, unfortunately it is what we are good at.
Excellent phrasing, Deborah. 561,956 reasons (and counting) to pass S1/S4
Posted this. Thanks.
Indeed! Maybe our pols need to be reminded of this. I keep returning to 14th century Siena and Lorenzetti’s allegory: “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three fresco panels painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between February 1338 and May 1339. The paintings are located in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico—specifically in the Sala dei Nove ("Salon of Nine"), the council hall of the Republic of Siena's nine executive magistrates,[2] elected officials who performed executive functions (and judicial ones in secular matters). The paintings have been construed as being "designed to remind the Nine [magistrates] of just how much was at stake as they made their decisions".[3]
Considered Lorenzetti's "undisputed masterpiece",[4] the series consists of six different scenes (the titles are all modern conveniences):
Allegory of Good Government
Allegory of Bad Government
Effects of Bad Government in the City
Effects of Bad Government in the Country
Effects of Good Government in the City
Effects of Good Government in the Country“ Thanks to Wikipedia.
Gotta love History!!!
Thank you! Here’s a link. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a35375363/allegory-good-and-bad-government-painting/
Lovely. Thank you!
Thank you for this.
Kate, This gift is absolutely precious. Many thanks.
Thank You!!
Mary, what a delight to find out about this. I visited Siena but did not know to look for it. I found it interesting that “ The virtues of Good Government are represented by six crowned, stately female figures: Peace, Fortitude, and Prudence on the left, Magnanimity, Temperance, and Justice on the right. On the far left of the fresco the figure of Justice is repeated as she is balancing the scales held by Wisdom. All women.
Jan, thank YOU for pointing this out. The "all women" observation somehow passed me by!I I guess it all seemed totally natural! However, I did enjoy this: https://youtu.be/NouQ7eoPFUs. Worth 2 min and 27 secs of your time!
Inspiring video! It's time the U.S. caught up to the rest of the world.
WOW!
Thank you Mary, for highlighting these famous frescos. A few years ago they were described on TV in a memorable scene from The Good Wife, to explain running for office.
https://www.google.com/search?q=siena+fresco+good+government&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbwv7mkvXvAhW4FVkFHVuWAoEQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1025&bih=491
Thank you TPJ. Spent the day - first in over a year - in little community 40 miles or so south of San Fran, to visit a well known goat dairy and check out the baby goats, and buy fresh goat cheese. It was wonderful to be out and about (carefully, of course), enjoy the ocean, and once again the local family-run tavern where I first ate artichoke soup, fresh fish, and their famous Olallieberry pie in 1973. I came home exhausted from walking around the goat farm and checking out the lovely creatures, and actually seeing so many people again. I am looking forward to checking out your source tomorrow, when I have recovered. It's lovely to linger over "pleasures".
I'm not surprised but I am assured by your history lesson. It further strengthens my belief that history repeat (more like rhymes) but through the course of human existence, it slowly improves.
The frustrating thing is human behavior severely lags behind human technology. The tech/internet/social media boom is the most recent example.
Every time we get new tools to raise the human condition, humans find a way to pound it back into the ground.
So liberals can keep aspiring to new heights and conservative can keep insisting change is bad but that takes me back to my good/bad people comment. It's the most simplest things that are often the hardest to achieve.
Gosh!
"Slowly improves" might slightly understate the changes to civilization in the past 500 years versus those in the previous 1000 years when little change occurred. And the rate of change (and the requirements for change) seems to still be increasing. What was true 75 years ago when I was born (such as a submissive response to overwhelming force) isn't happening anymore. Poor Third World countries are standing up to Superpowers and outlasting them (eg: Afghanistan vs USSR & US; Vietnam vs US & China) A very different result than when South America bowed before European guns and diseases.
When I think of change, I think of the Iroquois concept of "seven generations," and the lyrics to Susan Werner's song, "May I Suggest," especially this verse:
There is a hope / That's been expressed in you / The hope of seven generations, maybe more. And this is the faith / That they invest in you / It's that you'll do one better than was done before. Inside you know / Inside you understand / Inside you know what's yours to finally set right...
There are blinders on all of us ... love and loyalty render us unable to rebel against the past; unable to see the present; unable to conjure a better future. Intelligence and wisdom are no guarantee against these powerful forces which bind us together in families, clans, tribes, nations, and religious armies. Yet there are subtle forces that, like gravity, gently tug on our souls to be kind to a stranger, to hug an orphan, and to embrace a former enemy. It is these more subtle yearnings that bind all souls together, that unite humankind and earthlifekind. It may be justified for us to think ourselves special but it comes at a horrible price when it compels us to think others "evil."
Mary you gave of the place, the time, the subject matter - a perfect representations for the meaning of today's Letter. Thank you. Now I want to see the pictures.
Fern, I remember the first time I saw them, and was “blown away”! Wish I could go back and see them again! But that’s a big question mark at my age, however no harm in “dreaming” that maybe I’ll go back, and maybe our “pols” will “get it”.
We have dreams to keep alive, Mary.
Indeed😊
I’ve been to Siena many times, but did not se this. Thanks for sharing!
Enjoy the nest visit, Herb!
< next visit >
And we don’t need help from Russia, etc., in our elections.
Bingo, Christopher. Unfortunately, Americans' spines have been so fatally compromised by misinformation as to turn those who are so proud of thinking for themselves into automatons. We may still have free speech, but free-thinking is disappearing.
Joining this substack has re-taught me that will live in a perpetual state of swinging pendulums and up and down sine waves. Stick around long enough and it will come back around. Just need to find the accelerator pedal.
Oh, gosh, there is so much to unpack in this "motto". If only it was that simple. I am continually daunted by these sayings that obscure the deeper issues of a democracy. Sure let's elect "good" people.
My husband and I once had a week long, on and off, discourse about what "good people" are. We finally agreed that we just knew them when we saw them.
The characteristics I think most readily define "good" people seem to be empathy and compassion; the ability to see and appreciate the other point of view. My concern is that the term "evil" seems to often block this ability and enable us to wreak havoc on others before thinking things through and looking for nonviolent alternatives.
Just like pornography, am I right? lol!
Read into it whatever you like, it's just a statement. Both major parties are adept in electing a-holes. Republican's are better at but Democrats have more than their fair share.
If I'd said bad politicians are elected by under educated, misinformed or overtly biased people maybe we could all agree that the uneven educational system is the real culprit.
Where'd you get your degree in passive/aggressive/snarkery and were you valedictorian of your class?
Forgive me if I spoke too harshly. Your thoughts are clarifying.
janjamm, your response to Christopher was very kind. It is patently obvious that, “where’d you get your degree in passive/aggressive/snarkery and were you valedictorian in your class?” Should earn dear sweet Chris a PHD.
It is difficult for me to understand that an administration elected to protect the citizens of this country, failed miserably. And, yet 70 million people voted to re-elect that same administration in 2020. Thank the Universe that more people voted for the Biden administration. I have never understood what the draw was for DT, but I woke up on January 21, 2021 able to breathe for the first time knowing that the country was going to run the way it was designed to by those who fought for our freedom and, later, established a Constitution for us, all. Now, my frustration lies with the citizens who are simply ignoring what needs to be done, and overwhelming an already precarious health system, to end this pandemic. Just venting
Fran, a neighbor who is a fervent Trumper told my husband yesterday that Trump is “coming back in September” as President. Sadly, he is obviously only one among many who is Trump-eting this great news. That terrifies me. We must find a way to un-brainwash people like this!
Yeah, the My Pillow Guy has been trumpeting that tidbit of information for a couple weeks now. First March, now September. The QT contingency reminds me of the Hale Bopp Cult, Heaven's Gate.
Hale Bopp was a contingency of 40 people. I wish we could say the same for the Q's, the 4Chans, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front, etc. The cult list is almost endless. It still shocks me to find so many radical right groups that operate as cults do. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/groups
Yes, it was only 40 people. I, too, am struck by how cult like radical right groups are and how easily people are sucked into them. It's as though they live in a tunnel where making a U turn is nearly impossible.
I had forgotten about Hale Bopp. Yep, same cultish thinking.
Daria, thanks! We wondered who was touting this fable. We don’t know where he gets it.
So creepy. He hugs that pillow WAY too close.
Sorta like Donald, the flag molester?
when Delirium J Tremens doesn't come back in Sept that may do the job.
No, they just keep moving the date like all cults.
David, when he didn’t come back in March as our neighbor said he would, it was as if he’d never told us that it would. I feel quite certain that the same thing will happen in September. This sort of behavior always brings to mind how everyone searches for a motive when there is a mouse killing. Often, no one can come up with a motive. There are some people whose behavior defies logic and rationally.
If we can’t get The iDJT placed in the penitentiary we can pray he runs for President once again. The only thing the Orange u tan man can motivate more than tRumpers is his loyal opposition. We will come out in droves to defeat him :
Oh, dear. I meant mass killing, not mouse killing. Also, he would and not it would. Sloppy typing, for which I apologize.
A resource for “unbrainwashing”. Warning **it’s work (not easy)
https://freedomofmind.com/how-to-help-friends-family-following-trumps-election-loss-false-prophecy-mass-exodus-cognitive-dissonance/
Christy, it looks like this involves a cost. I would never get him to participate and I would not spend money knowing that ir would be wasted! But i do thank you for the suggestion.
Sorry Sara. I should have been more clear in my intent in posting the link. There’s a ton of info there to unpack. I tried to post the page that gave specific suggestions for talking with the “brainwashed”, but perhaps failed in that. I have not explored the part about treatment but I imagine that is more for concerned family and friends of folks that are verging on some really stupid behavior like an insurrection. These were the words I specifically thought might be helpful: “ With the hope that there will be a mass exodus from QAnon and the cult of Trump, how can we help? Please be respectful, compassionate and loving. Please reignite old positive memories. Focus on common issues that you both share-love of nature, children, animals, sports, whatever will help you to reconnect. As they change their stance, they may be cut off from their fellow believers’ support. We need to take the first step. Reach out to friends and family. Do not say, “I told you so” but “I miss you.”
One of the new initiatives I am proud to be a part of is the #iGotOut movement. Millions of us were a part of a destructive cult or relationship and successfully left. We need to normalize this experience. By doing so, we can provide an off-ramp for QAnon and Trump followers. They can begin to let go of phobias, understanding they are not legitimate fears. Ex-Followers need to understand they are not stupid. For most, they really wanted to make a difference and see a real change. Connect. Share. Amplify. Use the hashtag #iGotOut on social media and share how you got out. Connect with others who did the same. Amplify your voice. We don’t have to stay silent. Our stories of survival can resonate and inspire those still suffering from undue influence to get out and get free!
We are all Americans and need to work together to reboot the country. We can move forward to repair damage, promote science, and rebuild relationships. We must unify and not divide. 2021 is full of hope!”
Christy, thank you for the clarification and explanation. I admire you for getting yourself out have a bed situation. It surely takes strength, courage, and determination.
In our situation, our neighbor is more of an acquaintance than a friend. There is never really been a connection between us. We agree on virtually nothing. Covid is a hoax, birds and animals should be shot, There was no Russian involvement in our elections, there is no racism in the USA, etc., etc. i honestly don’t see that he can be turned around, I’m sorry to say.
Sara, iI’m guessing you missed the quotation marks in my reply quoting from the link. That was Steven Hassan, an expert on exiting cults speaking. My misunderstanding to think you were looking for actual info rather than speaking rhetorically. No big deal. It’s all good.
Have you heard anything from our President, Schumer, Pelosi touting the escalation in vaccinating the population? its consequences? the newly proposed American Jobs Plan? Silence in response to anticipation of the 2nd coming of Agent Chaos vacuums the greater good that actually is being sought today by such a plan right out of the room. This is the time for us - you, me, and our "leaders" to replace our silence with fact burnished by heart based arguments of the difference a Biden and a democratic majority in the House is making over the wake of pure thievery that characterized the pure gaul of Agent Chaos's administration. Speak truth again again again.
We need Fern McBride's idea of "Truth Spots" all over media, whenever such lies surface.
👍🏻
Fighting for freedom and writing the constitution may not be the same people. History is told by who wrote it. It can be argued that the progressive thinking Hamiltons who fought for freedom were in opposition to the slaveholder Jeffersons who wrote the constituton and eventually hold to power.
I am from Michigan, Land of the Third Wave. You vent for all of us.
Yes they’re out there but in lesser numbers. For my own sanity I choose not to focus on them. Many many people are on a positive and stable course now.
But the right wing folks won’t remember. And the left is also rapidly forgetting. We are at risk for our next election cycle. Government has its place and if the Republicans get power again they won’t relinquish it easily. We must remember what Capitalism unchecked has wrought!
Trust me, we are still living with the Trump Train in Florida. It's awful.
Hi Kelly..Orlando here! This morning on Smerconish Carl Hiassen ( who just retired from Miami Herald) referred to plans for a "Trump Library"(oxymoron, right?) in FL. He said there will be fights against it in any number of locales. I hope Palm Beach fights it on the basis of gauche-ness if nothing else. Hiassen also said Gaetz is " not a candidate for Mensa." In FL, he says, when you combine stupidity with an arrogance about getting away with things you get "Florida weird".
Stay tuned.
Little slivers of hope.
"trump Library"
would that be endless loops of fox videos?
—and iDJT tweets.
😂😂😂
What on earth would be put in such a "library"? Tweets?
Ha Ha - great response!
Carol the things they would publish would be used as evidence in his upcoming trials.
The Trump train is going nowhere. Like all things without a good purpose chaos leads to change and change is in the air.
It’s like a criminal canal has taken over our state. Our small island of blue in St Pete/Pinellas County is at siege with our neighbors.
I get it believe me. Living in SRQ is downright depressing, but if we ever get independent commissions for redistricting the end of the nightmare may be in sight. Support the American Jobs Bill HR 1
SRQ = Santa Rosa County with tip of the hat to Q?
I am so frustrated for you, Diane, and Kelly and others on this page.
Diane and Carol can see the future. You unfortunately can only see the past. Change is in the air. Take a deep breath and you can smell it.
Thanks for setting me straight, joe. I'll try to do better.
Don't change a thing, Lynell. You receive many more replies and Likes than Joe. He should learn from you.
*cabal (not canal)
St. Pete and Pinellas County is evidently loaded with Democrats and people who can make choices that work. Diane, I believe we are in the right place to grow more blue pathways to the central, northern and southern parts of Florida. Nice to look forward to a change.
From your lips Joe
Truly hope so.
Autocorrect is run by Kossacks
So unhappy for you, Kelly.
Thx. I am working hard to change the state. But it's an uphill battle. My Rep in Congress beat a great candidate (well known and loved former TV News anchor, started a foundation for breast cancer survivors years ago) by 34 points. He won't have Town Halls because he says it gives Dems press opportunities. He is former Sherriff and is iDJT all the way. Then, there's Rick Scott and Lidl Rubio.
You Tube removed a Covid video our Gov put up last week because it contained falsehoods. Dr. Atlas (of iDJT fame) was on the panel. Republicans are aiming their 1st Amendment rights have been violated by You Tube. The legislature is controlled by Republicans. It's an absolute hot mess!
*claiming their 1st A . . .
I am so sorry. That looks horrible from here.
Think of it as a continuation of the iDJT presidency. Lies and stupidity. 100%
There were so many instances the past administration ignored custom or protocol that it’s imperative we need concrete laws to prevent it happening again. The transition was one of the last, very dangerous examples.
How can we get concrete laws when the Republicans in Congress block every measure the Democrats try to put on the table?
well, there are Mansion and Sinema, blocking and tackling every good proposal they can find...Who purchased them that they are so fearful of doing the right things? Or merely another case of clinging to "power"...
There is a genuine head of steam building to pressure Biden to get rid of the filibuster, but I think he still feels that somehow he can bring the likes of a Matt Gaetz or Rick Scott to understand the needs for real infrastructure. Good luck with that.
That was Obama’s mistake. I think (hope) Biden has learned that lesson.
I think he has. That was discussed during the ARP.
Next door to me is an infant cemetery for twenty or thirty infants who died of influenza in 1918. It is a little spooky in there with the low hanging oaks and dim light. We are lucky that Covid doesn’t like to kill infants and kids, so far at least.
I enjoyed reading Stuart’s take on France. Just because of the feeling in the posts that I am hearing an inside story, a truth. I do think there is a flavor to the truth. We have just lost its taste because it is so rarely felt. Today we just get spin from most news outlets. That is what I like about HCR. And no, I don’t think it matters that Maine is mostly white.
At the beginning of the epidemic I was in the Bahamas and I gave a talk on what to expect. This was February. I said that since it was a novel virus, meaning none of us have any immunity we would all either have to get it or get a vaccine. Our only choices were when and where to get it or how long it would take to develop the vaccine. There was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact. That fact is still true and is a fact that should/could be in play regarding people’s individual choice to receive a vaccine. Eyes are still glazed apparently.
From this I’m reminded of how as a species we thrive on hope even if it is a fantasy. Realism just can’t compete. I hope our situation with the For The People Act doesn’t go the same way. If the notion of free elections becomes a hopeful fantasy because the reality is that too many of our current leaders were elected more for their personal monetary concerns than the concerns of democracy then we are there. Every day I try to understand what is happening with the bill. What is the process for getting it out of committee? Still, I have no idea. The senate rules at .gov just say the committee will vote on it. Clearly, that doesn’t always happen so what’s up? Clearly, it would be preferable for the repressive opposition to let it fade in the national attention by being wound up in committee while the state level fights take center stage.
I also find it interesting that the bill to improve voting is a national bill while the bills to restrict voting are state bills. I guess I have been a strong federal government advocate for some time. I believe we have to be one country not a bunch of states loosely held together. I recognize a past where statehood was important. Transportation and communications over long distances were not as they are now. No one tries to limit their business or their travel or anything at all to their state boundaries. But contrarily, it seems that if you are spending money to influence voters the best way to do it is locally. So it makes sense that repressive voices focus locally. It is hard to argue with your neighbors even if they are nuts but especially if they are more willing to be violent. I have so much respect for those black people who stood up to the Klan. Wow.
There is so much complexity it’s bewildering.
Complexity is bewildering which is why Heather’s ‘connect the dots’ Letters are so valuable.
You said a mouthful here: "here was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact. That fact is still true and is a fact that should/could be in play regarding people’s individual choice to receive a vaccine. Eyes are still glazed apparently."
Eyes are glazed here in Oregon (or they are ablaze with conspiracy theories; sometimes both.) This thing ain't over. Don't let your guard down.
I like your point that we thrive on hope and find realism difficult. My angled paraphrasing. Hope requires little in substance and we can morph with it without exercise or energy. Whereas realism require evaluative thought, active acquisition of new knowledge (truth), and has consequences of got that right or got that wrong. This makes us good prey to fantasists and grifters forever in all things.
Patrick, your description of the audiences' reaction when you were giving a talk at the beginning of the pandemic in February, more than a year ago, will stay in my mind:
'Our only choices were when and where to get it or how long it would take to develop the vaccine. There was a noticeable glazing of the eyeballs in the group at that point. It was a sign I didn’t quite recognize as the inability for a fact to penetrate. There was a great willingness to discuss various ancillary details but no return to the solemn central fact.' '......Eyes are still glazed apparently.'
That provoked me to think about what is happening now in Michigan; the reluctance of many Republicans to take the vaccine as well as others. America is so desperately sick a number of ways, and it took the deadly virus to spell that out.
I think that you have clearly laid issues and questions. H.R. 1 may be stalled by work to tailor it in a way to get it passed but also as matter of timing given Biden's heavy and difficult agenda.
On another point, I don't think that we've lost the flavor of truth, it is unforgettable. Unfortunately, perhaps, some have not tasted it or are absolutely overcome by greed and self-interest.
Yes, through our current experiences, attention to the mechanics of power, reading, concern and Heather's Letters we are feeling more of the savagery inflicted on the Black people of this country.
Thank you, Patrick, for saying what people need to know whether they're receptive or not. As a sometime historian of disease, I have sounded the alarm about Covid-19 since Feb 2020, in person and online. Yet too many people still refuse to take it seriously, seizing any rationale for indulging in selfish behavior. And until Jan 20, the lack of leadership compounded every problem. Despite the Biden admin's impressive results, it's still quite likely that Covid-19's death toll will surpass that of 1918-19. So much avoidable suffering and death ... tragic.
Biden’s impressive results notably do not include a 4-5 week lockdown with wages covered. The only proven method for stopping this virus in its tracks.
The US should have emulated many European countries: the strictest shutdown for 4-5 weeks as you note (I'd say 6), with government deficit spending covering wages, budgets, rents, mortgages, insurance. But that required actually giving a schist about the American people, and the Trumpsky admin did not.
Also my property taxes were deferred last year and this... what a nice surprise! It makes up for lockdown in Portugal.
There is no worthy credit due to the previous administration. Now we must only certain that we rid ourselves of the remnants and make certain that our Democracy survives their scourge against voting rights.
Corbitt your point is so very important! We seem to be on the verge of forgetting how fragile our Republic really is. And there are several countries (Russia for one) that are actively pushing us towards failure. We must as a people stand up against the suppression of the vote.
When Ohio went for trump in the 2016 election a primal scream of distress was elicited from this household. Across the country, my siblings, children, friends and I noted he would, figuratively and/or literally, kill us all. The combination of incompetence throughout the so called “administration” and trump’s corrupt and dishonorable ways left no other outcome. We recognized the election of this evil person went beyond “normal” and fell into the category of a non-benevolent dictator-wanna-be who picked up the vitriolic rhetoric and modus operandi of the Newt Gringrich era. trump and his minions should be charged with crimes against humanity given their blatant and intentional mishandling of the pandemic.
The US is the largest global corporation and government in the world (and in history). Thank goodness we now have an administration that exhibits benevolent and compassionate leadership combined with a widespread network and deep bench of smart, experienced people who actually know how to govern and understand the massive departments they oversee.
Thanks to people like Heather, there is a growing number of people becoming aware, educated, and involved.... re-awakened to understanding the fact that a well run democracy requires participation and paying attention! That the republicans stonewall any and everything that doesn’t line their own pockets is abhorrent and deadly. There is zero cooperation or intellectual prowess on their part and hopefully the Biden/Harris administration and “we the people” can maintain the momentum to turn the tide against those who only want to do harm.
Optimism is contagious. I pray you are right in the tide being turned.
Primal scream of distress, yes. I uttered such in 2016 and then lived with rising anxiety until January 20, 2021. I try to maintain optimism and I generally concur with your assessment above. But then the venality of Republicans...particularly here in the South...stars-and-bars everywhere...sometimes I am so tired.
The folks that lost someone during these sad times will not forget. My moms mother died of the 1918 influenza. She was 34 years old. My mom was 4 years old. This time around it has, so far, been older folks that have been taken but old or young these premature losses are very heavy to bear for the families they happen to. I look at the picture of my grandmother in her organdie gown in 1905, so beautiful, hopeful and happy, her whole life before her and am so sad that neither my mother or I ever got the chance to really know her. When I look in the mirror I see her smile, and my mom’s smiling back at me so perhaps, they are not so far away after all.🥰
Thank you for the powerful reminder that history may repeat itself if we let it. The grifters and scoundrels we have had running our government and ruining our lives since Ronald Reagan are shameful. Hopefully we are moving out of the Reagan era for good. As HCR writes, "Remembering the nation’s suffering under the pandemic matters because the contrast between the disastrous last year and our hope this spring is a snapshot of what is at stake in the fight over control of the nation’s government."
It is time to continue bold actions: Make the Electoral College irrelevant, eliminate the filibuster, pass voting legislation to make gerrymandering illegal, etc. All of these things are possible. With eight years of Biden we can make Republicans a thing of the past.
We must not be timid. As the professor writes,"In America, the two very different responses to the pandemic have given us a powerful education in government activism. 'For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed,' Biden said, 'And we have seen the tragic cost of that failure….'"
One thin profit from having Republicans as adversaries is that it activated Democrats and others.
I am just going to sit here and breathe in some of your optimism. I tend to be gloomy about the prospects of making these changes. The deck is so stacked against us... Deep breath....
Reid look what we did in GA. The deck was stacked there. I, incredibly cheap bastard that I am, gave more money to Fairfight than I gave away during the entire 2020 election cycle. We can repeat this. And I for one plan to provide lemonade and quiche to voters in The longest voting line I can find in the Peach State.
Hi Reid - It is just sunny optimism on my part, only spotting a path. I firmly believe if we don't get rid of the filibuster, McConnell will at his first chance. I believe, too, that the reason they are block voting is to say in the end, we knew Biden was not really president.
I think it helps to keep repeating such messages as often as we can. There are millions who don’t read LFAA. It’s one way to push back against the PUTIN/KOCH/GOP/FOX propaganda raining down on so many every damn day
Influenza is with the world every year, all the time, and it's not going away in seasons but travelling round the world evolving as it goes. The world is round, it comes back. It has had massive peaks such as the 1918 epidemic and again with the Hong Kong Flu in 1968. Each year the vaccine for Europe, which takes 6 months to develop, is based-upon the "beast" as it passed through Australia the previous summer. This year we have hardly heard about influenza! The beast hasn't gone away but people are taking precautions by washing their hands frequently, adopting masks, practicing "social distancing and limiting the size and scope of gatherings. The beast has largely been tamed and we take it in our stride. We will learn to do likewise with the Covid, mostly master it and get on with our lives.
What we have most clearly to control better is the panic created around the epidemic. Panic leads to chaos and very bad decision-making. The French government and many other such administrations in the Western World accerbated the panic, creating fear and other psychoses in the people and chaos in their response to the challenge. They screwed up on the mask question; saying first that they were dangerous, then unnecessary before admitting that they had destroyed all their safety stocks (1B masks!), they screwed up the testing program....they had no tests, they failed appallingly at tracing the contacts of those infected, they canned programs to test and validate viral infection drugs that might help as they were selling an "only vaccines can do the job" message....but no french company could produce, masks, tests or vaccines. Now they are screwing up the vaccine program by starting with an insistence that Europe handles it...not them and then poo-pooing the idea of mass vaccination centres.
Despite this government, with dedicated hospital workers of all sorts and the people's perseverance and courage we are beating the bug down to a level where it can be "managed" in the future as it will not now be going away entirely. Fortunately our "Nov 3" in May 2022!
I can’t speak for France Stuart, but, in the US our previous administration saw Covid purely as a political problem. Every action or inaction was driven by political gamesmanship, not public health. They effectively threw paper towels at the states and told them to clean up the mess.
Residue from the initial mixed messaging and misinformation still taints our understanding today. Masks and social distancing have become political footballs instead of lifesaving strategies. Vaccines have been misrepresented by those who want to stoke fear and hobble the Biden administration.
Bizarrely, the only adults in the room during the previous administration were businesses who understood that their survival required getting the virus under control and protecting their employees. Large grocery and big box chains required masks when government wouldn’t. Meanwhile meat packing plants and nursing homes, who were barred from public scrutiny, provided little PPE for workers many of whom came to work sick out of necessity. These businesses became hotbeds of infection.
Even CDC & WHO guidelines have been woefully inadequate. Hospitals developed their own protocols to protect their employees from aerosol transmission. They realized that N95 masks, let alone surgical masks were not adequate for healthcare workers spending time in the same room with Covid patients. The CDC still hasn’t adequately updated guidelines.
And your likely correct that Covid won’t go away. But, unlike the old “beast” it may not be so easily managed. In many ways it’s still far more deadly and insidious than seasonal Flu with debilitating long term effects for many survivors. Virologists have concluded that the dramatic drop in flu cases is not only due to masks & hygiene, but, also lack of air travel which is its normal vector in modern times.
Biden is working hard to fix what is broken, but, 4 years can’t rebuild what’s been dismantled over the last 50. Covid 19 is a metaphor for our vulnerability as well as an actual killer. It should have brought us together, it didn’t.
I prefer to see the signs of hope and rebirth that are emerging as more and more of us are vaccinated and life starts to look more normal. This I attribute to Biden’s leadership. Former guy spent the first 3 years trying to dismantle government in efforts to create his own form of dictatorship. Then he lied from the getgo about the virus. Even if he realized that this pandemic required federal leadership, he would have been incompetent to make it happen partly because he surrounded himself with other self-serving incompetents. We have many smart and hardworking members of Biden’s team in the act of repairing the colossal damage.
My optimism is tempered by what’s happening in my state. The former guy still controls much of his party. Here in Florida, he’s king. All attempts to appear fair and reasonable have been cast off as “cancel culture”.
We’ve become the canary, stay tuned.
I am tuned to the politics in FL and I really hope things get better.
If Florida is the litmus test, we are in deep, deep trouble.
Doesn't it look, too, as though Orangepeel Man thought, like Bolsonaro, that Covid-19 would mainly kill off the poor who didn't count for him? Apart from that weird right-wingnut superstition that individuals are so separate that we don't share the same air along with what it carries.
Or social security recipients (no doubt many fall into the poor), and minorities whom all had higher mortality/morbidity rates
Yes, I used the word "poor" as something of a catch-all for those to whose fate the man's most indifferent.
Having said which, surely the only relevance we can now accord him is that with which the law will take an interest. Now it's their dirty job to sort through the smut and, it is to be hoped, act on it before those with very short memories have completely forgotten what -- in any case -- they never understood. Meanwhile, the beasts move freely among us.
You were good enough to thank me for being interested in the mechanics of deception and self-deception -- but how could anyone with a care for truth, justice and the fate of posterity NOT care?
❤️❤️🙏🏼
It sure looks like it.
I know it's easier to see the problems at home than elsewhere but polticians in Europe would give Trump a good run for his money in the covid stakes. Here they acted badly and were seen to do so rather than standing aside. Now everything they do is highly political as they are both afraid of getting thrown out on their ears AND of judicial review and retribution. What worked best in the first lockdown was the hospital doctors reaching across "boundaries" to colleagues to solve problems...thus totally ignoting the administraters and the idiot politicians!
Absolutely. I think the confluence of both viruses when the world starts traveling at the old rate may be devastating.
Covid is different because of its long term effects on our health, which remains to be evaluated and recognized. The main panic seems to be ignorant peoples fear of needles being stuck in ones arm, and their response is to buy a gun and tear down the federal government. I hope the election in France doesn’t go Nazi as in Poland.
The approach of the government is generating the panic here. Their nightly Press Conference was to announce the days death toll for instance...echoes of prime time news coverage of the "bodybags" coming home from Vietnam. They have dithered constantly over lockdowns, curfews, travel restrictions etc chopping and changing the rules to end up with "smoke and mirrors" without the shadow of a policeman to enforce whatever and which increasingly no one follows. The confidence of the people in the government has disappeared down the drain and the credibility of the politicians with it. Neither the administrative machine nor its leaders have a clue what to do. Since the first "surge" last april we have had the constant theme about not overwhelming the essential hospital services while sending elderly sufferers to the retirement homes ostensibly to ease congesture but in reality to decimate (inadvertently of course...they don't think) the residents. Over the last 20 years the successive governments have been using the hospitals as punching balls for cuts to public spending. Since last march no governmental effort has been expended to create new covid treatment capacity in the hospitals. The public sector refuses to use capacity in private medical facilities...against their principles!
When you look at the vaccines...some people are afraid of needles but others are wary because of the governments awful past performance in imposing vaccines that have subsequently been banned and others that are potentially extremely difficult for babies to bear. The government has contributed also with its dithering over Astra Zeneca and long delays in okaying any of the vaccines ...prudence!...while the Uk finally gets something right.
In this country the government is lucky that only the criminals know how to acquire illegal hand guns and military style weapons.
We don't want to tear down the government but to totally change the machinery that supports its expensive inaction and incompetence so that it works for the people and not just for itself.
Canada has screwed up somewhat same as France in managing the pandemic and vaccinations. And we have idiots lobbying for American style gun laws and availability. Does New Zealand have room for 350 million refugees?
We have room here in the States more than most countrys do. Why can’t we just get along?
Were there is space, there is lower population density...greater distance from neighbours...less chance or will to understand the other! However the reverse is not necessarily true at the extremes where people live on top of each other. In the middle somewhere is distinctly preferrable.
There is the matter of uneven population distribution. US residents are too bunched up in some places, and too widely spaced in others. Still, some more goodwill always helps.
Minimum wealth requirement $40,000 but a great deal of reticence to taking on the potential health expense of those "getting on a bit" when you haven't previously contributed to their system! My mother tried to go to Australia to join my sister and her at age of 86 but was refused there for that reason. On the question of space, best ask the Maoris about that. Its their islands!
I had understood it was actually quite difficult to gain residence in New Zealand, kind of like Switzerland. Is there an expat population there?
They want people who can make a positive contribution from day 1. They are of course chosey...who wounld't be when the ultra rich are beating a path to their door as the last remaining safe haven. They are very good at rugby, have a lot of sheep...and have also had a mega gun massacre in Christchurch a while ago. ...but they have a charming and very effective Prime Minister....no covid during her watch!
There are expats in NZ, but also strict requirements for permanent residence, keeping the numbers low. Kiwis are very aware that their country is attractive and so are wary of a too-large influx. This became a priority as large numbers of Asians sought entry and refuge from late-20C crises. (Check the map for proximity to Southeast Asia, a permanent source of concern.) I don't blame them right now, but there is a darker aspect: White Australia and White NZ policies and sentiments. For over 100 years NZ and especially Aus rigorously excluded Asian migrants. They didn't mind exploiting Pacific Islanders kidnapped by "blackbirders."
https://www.bing.com/search?q=australia+world+map&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=australia+world+map&sc=6-19&sk=&cvid=84C1252E6DBC4FEE8ED25B656AA9CE05
R Huttenback, Race and Empire
H Maude, Slavers in Paradise
D Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbirding
Hmmmm...who is “we”?
An increasingly all pervasive feeling wherever you roam....starting ostensibly if you like a couple of years ago.....after building continuously over the past 40 years....with the initial "gilets jaunes"... who were ordinary people who were fed up of not being listened to and governed according to the whims and needs of a certain Parisian clique whose only contact with the rest of France is a visit to their secondary residence or to the "family seat" still occupied by their parents.
Wages have not increased in real terms in a very long time here and the people have the impression that they are all being progressivley screwed down to "minimum wage". Profits however were growing and doing very well thank you pre-covid while massive stocks of capital are still held offshore owing to the shock of the Socialist Party with Hollande winning the 2012 Presidentials and to the horrendous French Tax System in general which both discourages investment and facilitates capital flight and deprives thus the economy of "oxygen" and only the workers and the small businesses pay the price.
No party can currently count on scraping up more than 20-25 % of the vote and most are actually closer to 10%. As nobody is actually showing they care the debate radicalizes....and gets a great deal more attention. We'll see!
Just curious - is “ a certain Parisian clique whose only contact with the rest of France is a visit to their secondary residence or to the "family seat" still occupied by their parents.” ...the old royal families?
Fortunately very far from the mark. The clique are what is now referred to as the "anywheres" as they are all business, highly commerce school/university educated and as at home in New York as in London or Paris...no roots there, don't need them. Some take the banking /finance route, others the "ENA certification" and administrative power...but none venture out to talk to the real people...the "somewheres" .
Wow. Very sad indeed.
Interesting the fear of needles. The needle used with Covid is about as fine as a mosquito’s proboscis. I feel most people’s reluctance is part and parcel of our culture wars.
A friend of mine, who by the way, didn't want to get the vaccine (I changed her mind) had one of her friends of 50+ years tell her that she now has dead babies floating around in her blood. My friend was appalled by this. You see, I told her what I knew about the Pfizer vaccine and told her to do more research, which she did. So she told her friend about what she learned, but her friend wasn't having any of it.
So now she doesn't know how she can handle being friends with someone who is telling her what a lot of Christians have told me over the years, you are going to hell.
All I know is that you can try to reason with people but if it gets to the point where conspiracy theories or just plain stupidity is what you deal with, it just isn't worth it.
Had to part ways with my best friend of over 40 years due to her anger and stupidity. Don't have time to deal with that.
I know that feeling of losing friends over their adherence to conspiracy theories. What is worse, in my mind, are the ones who aren't extremely fringe, but the ones who are reasonable and still buy into conspiracy "lite" with their "right" wing myopia.
It is a pity indeed. We do not forceJehovah’s witnesses to take blood, and we are amazed when we watch a believer die for their cause. This is a choice they make and they have the option to receive blood to prevent their demise until they die. They also put no one at risk for their choices. The folly of not being vaccinated is one’s impending doom can not be reversed by choice if one gets really 😷 sick. And one puts others at risk, with what appears to be risky behavior. Wear a 😷! Get vaccinated. Help the herd.
Kudos to you for taking the time and making the effort to re-educate your friend. If we can change the mind of even one person, we have done a good thing.
"Christians"... telling you you are going to hell? Christians?
Doesn't it say "Vengeance is mine, I will repay", says the Lord.
All these good people trying to upstage the Deity. Like Imelda Marcos pushing her way in front of the Pope on the palace balcony.
But that was only the Pope...
Tell them to go to hell.
Ha! Ha! Ha! There you go again — actually reading the Book.
I’ve had to read it over the past several years. My work brought me to that. The reading alone is very demanding for anyone who’s concerned with the substance that lies behind words.
I appreciate and understand your efforts. 🙏🏼 Once again I post a link to information from experts not so much for you as for everyone who wonders about anti science and propaganda. Sorry to be redundant but I wish for smart people to understand neuroscience. After all, none of us are given much of a user manual on this complex organ we were gifted. Hassan is one of many experts on the mind. https://freedomofmind.com/necsi-covid-community-action-summit-a-cult-experts-advice-on-dealing-with-anti-vaxxers-and-general-vaccine-hesitancy/
Thank you. All help in this direction can be useful.
Thank you Peter for being interested. ❤️
I agree with the utter futility of trying to open some very closed minds. I hate wasting time and energy. You never know what will work someday for people who have drunk the kool aid. Many I’m afraid will never know the difference between fantasy and reality.
It is horrifying to read these true stories. Hearing it from a subscriber, knowing how close this societal calamity is had a physical impact on me. How close these hallucinations are, such as the babies in our blood, they are here. My mind jumped to some connection with an extreme anti-abortion movement. It was the mind jumping, I am not reporting it as news.
I wish the media would quit showing people getting shots with what appears to be long needles that take a long time to insert in the arm and a long time to inject. That only exacerbates peoples' fears about getting the shot if they are needle wary anyway, but showing the reality isn't nearly as riveting. The needle is indeed very fine and when I got both my shots, they were done before I even realized they had injected me.
I had the same experience; my shot was delivered by our department's SWAT medic, and I literally did not feel it either insertion or extraction.
I agree Pamela! I was dreading the appointment and when she said, ok just sit here for 15 minutes to be sure you have no reaction, I was like “ What? You’re done???!!!”
How happy for you!
I was surprised too at how I didn't feel a thing until the chills and fever the next day. I'm not looking forward to the second shot if that's how I reacted to the first one...
Celebrate the response: it means your body is working to develop antibodies. ;-)
Indeed a good response is both a misery and a cause for celebration.
Kim 100%
I felt better after my 2nd shot than I did after my first. You never know. Best of luck to you for no reaction, or minimal reaction.
Julie, we also feel better now that you've had the second shot. Stay well!
when I got my second shot other than a slightly sore arm all I had the next day was feeling as though I hadn't slept. Hope your second shot goes better.
Those effects are also common with most vaccines though. I lost a day after the first shingles shot, and the second one is the “bad one”.
Same here. I am terrified of "needles" (+ PTSD after an awful hospital experience)... but the Covid vaccine was completely painless. After effects from shot #1 were minimal... actually looking forward to #2 and just hoping I don't have a bad reaction.
Same here— it was fast and painless.
Agreed
Covid is different from common flu, but its very similar to how the body responds to new or novel Flu as we have learned from the 1918 Pandemic. And yes, agree, there are long term effects researchers continue to discover.
Influenza virus is always mutating, thank Birds, and Pigs, and Horses for that, these are the endemic populations where new influenza virus continue their evolution/mutations. The danger that lurks with the flu is that its RNA is less stable than most viruses and as it is endemic mostly to wild migratory birds, so it has a population where it can lay dormant ( to us) and continue to mutate (evolve) in the wild. So it remains a challenge as we wont know how serious the next influenza outbreak could be till a new version jumps from the wild to humans and spreads globally. When a virus mutates its proteins so much, that our immune systems cant recognize it, that is when an hyper immune response occurs ( cytokine storm happens in the lungs) and hospitals fill.
Only government funding the WHO and the CDC to conduct the necessary surveillance around the world to get early warning of outbreaks to prevent pandemics. ( we can thank Agent Orange for disbanding our Pandemic Response Teams and process at the National Security level in 2017). Infection disease surveillance requires cooperation from all governments to accomplish. I don't think China has done all it can, or all it could to really help this pandemic. We need to "trust but verify" with emergent infectious diseases. Infectious diseases are a true threat to our National Security. China needs to be more open to the WHO and CDC. China has not let the WHO nor CDC investigate fully to find the origin and tell the story (truth). By being uncooperative they have only sewn distrust and dismay, breeding grounds for conspiracy. This has played a role here with the anti vax crowd, that is going to prolong this pandemic, and it never should have.
To understand the Pandemic of 1918, is to understand what and how everything went wrong in 2020. I don't think most could understand 1918 without reading, "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry, Tulane History.
The Great Influenza, John M. Barry
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491
I don’t share this to grow fear in anyone. We should vote for candidates that have a strong plank of Public Health in their platforms.
Ted, our mono cultures of corn, wine grapes, cows, turkeys, chickens etc, are crops vulnerable to viral infestations because of both proximity and singularity. The greatest crop we are growing is ourselves. We will be foolish indeed if we ignore the need for strong public health. Period dot.
Spillover by David Quammen
Very valuable, thanks Ted. I think a lot of people need to grow more fearful, enough to change their behavior, for the sake of public and planetary health.
Live animal markets are a crucial part of global disease risk. Such sites, especially those in Africa and Asia, are hazards not so much in themselves, but because that's where many Newly Emerging Diseases emerge. NEDs develop and first mutate there, the interface where humans meet live animals and, just as bad, where we encounter freshly slaughtered beasts. Effective regulation must be part of any successful global anti-disease strategy.
Koch supported cattlemen are currently rounding up all the wild Mustangs to export for meat so they can use public lands to raise more cattle. The Buteau of Land Management is carrying out historectomies without anesthetics on mares, with such impunity one would think it’s an act designed to overwhelm and suppress what’s left of America’s soul. I’ve never been a worst abuse of horses. This is tRump card in the race to degrade US morale.
Ted, I don't have a chance on most days to read many comments. I am glad that I took a little time tonight to read a few. Your comment above was very interesting to me. I hope that you will continue to share medical/scientific information with us. Do you know about the genetic research that is being done now regarding Covid? My sense of it is that researchers are trying to learn which people are most vulnerable to serious health consequences once they have contracted the infection, such as their blood type, etc., and which treatments could be most effective.
That was an incredible book - and the similarities with how Covid was handled worldwide are remarkable. In a bad way.
The rhymes that instruct.
And on the political question concerning the hard-right RF (Marine Le Pen) only about a quater of her support actually thinks that she is good for anything.....the other 3/4 just think the other idiots are listening to anything they say. That's why she is getting the ratings that say she might win. Unfortunately the only thing certain for the time being is that the current bunch of chumps will be joining the queues of unemployed. Otherwise, wherever you look, mediocrity abounds. It's a dreadful sight to see the dross on all sides that thinks it has a chance of ruling the roost.
Stuart, in an extremely perverse way you are actually making me feel better about being in the U.S. this morning!!! Thanks.
Every little bit helps, Carol. Have a great day.
Thanks for your thoughts on that.
Watching Marine Le Pen’s dad on TV 37 years ago—out of pure, disinterested curiosity, I left my political preferences outside the door—gave me a violent headache. I had to give up and lie down on the grass outside. But when I felt better and went back in, he was still speaking (and yes, he had the gift of the gab). Ah good, so I’ll hear more…
No way. This time, headache came with nausea.
Back into the garden… All gone.
May 2017: Marine Le Pen “debating” Emmanuel Macron.
This time I was fool enough to follow her ridiculous performance. It didn’t even have the all-in-wrestler’s show-off style of Agent Orange circling around poor Hillary Clinton. And this time, I was even more stupid. I lost my cool… For which stupidity I paid the price. Not just a headache… blood pressure soared to heights unknown before or since … and wouldn’t come back down to normal for several weeks… until I got a good shiatsu treatment from a friend in Madrid.
Initially, I didn’t understand these things. I’m no angel but… well, it’s pretty plain by now what kind of people we’re dealing with here. Niece is a politician version of DT’s last addition to the Supreme Court (the French term for her ilk being “a holy water frog”). They should add a line to the Litany to protect us from this bunch and their transatlantic counterparts...
Stuart Thank you for the rundown on the situation in France. I have been curious on other countries approach (beyond what I read in the NYT) - your boots on the ground readout is far more insightful. I’m in the Northeast and got my J&J vaccine yesterday - largely because our city made the vaccine available to youth sports coaches. I am so grateful and have had NO reaction except a great night of sleep.
Stuart, the situation in France, which I have been reading about in the English-language press, but my brother-in-law (beau frére!) does avidly in the French press, sounds awful. What is also interesting is that Sarkozy seems to be using this crisis as an opportunity to do all kinds of social engineering as well, especially in terms of condemning academic topics such as Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory as "American invasions" into French academia. I don't understand the reasoning behind this at all.
Culture vs Race
Please see: The Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropogy, edited by Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer.
Page 463:
“The word race was used by the English and other colonists justifying abuse and robbing the people in their colonies. The use of the word race became associated with cranial studies in the 1830s and 1840s when Samuel Morton “proved “ the larger brain size, and therefore superiority of Whites over other races. Only in 1977 did biologist Stephen Jay reanalalyze the data and discovered that Morton’s overt racists bias had made mistakes in the measurements.”
Page 464
“Modern anthropologists use “ethnicity” to express process of cultural identification.”
The USA is a mass culture. It has lots of sub-cultures, life styles, each with their own traditions and each may include many skin colors.
OK, I hope I haven’t bored you too much. It’s hard for me to find English books here in the backwoods of Portugal. I’m sure there are many more that can back me up. I was so interested in your discussion, I couldn’t resist sticking my nose in. To be silent is to be aquiesent.
Amazon allows the starving mind to be fed and survive..in English...in our foreign lands.
it's amazing the extent to which the merchant adventurers went to justify their "rape and pillage" in colonial development and empire building days. It doesn't just apply to Africa etc as you so rightly point out. Go West young man!
No apologies necessary, Susan. Barnard and Spencer is a fine resource.
How is Portugal in terms of vaccinations? I love Portugal but haven’t heard much about it lately.
We came out of lockdown on 7 April to avoid too jovial student happenings during Easter week. We had to wear masks everywhere out of the house, could only go to essencial services, not church, had to be on our way home by 1pm (cops at all roundabouts checking addresses on our i.d., with extremely high fines for non-compliance. The Portuguese are mostly sensible about wearing masks, etc.They are acutely aware of having a comparatively small population and wish to protect it.
Thank you— good to hear. The Portuguese seem very sensible.
It's almost as if countries around the world are experimenting to see which can come up with the newest and most novel way to govern poorly. Hard to compete with DJT, but Bolsonaro, for one, is giving him a run for his money. Sarkozy appears downright competent in comparison. We live in interesting times. New Zealand and Germany appear to me to be competently run, and the Nordic countries are doing OK. But it's hard to come up with any other governments doing well.
Leave us not forget PM Johnson in the UK as another poster-child for inept government. My friends and colleagues there are profoundly worried about life in the throes of Brexit. In my sphere, performing artists there are being hammered with tons of rules and regulations, and their work, already sidelined because of Covid, is in serious danger of totally drying up. Many have had to try and re-define themselves and find other avenues to get by on. Some I know managed to re-locate to mainland Europe (before things shut down) and haven't regretted it. Johnson is a joke and, to hear them tell it, he is driving the country into the ground. All for this silly idea of somehow returning the UK to its former glory days. What an empty promise that has turned out to be.
Did anyone see Boris the Spider on TV after Prince Philip's death? The UK needs a law saying that the PM must comb his hair.
he probably did...;doesn't make a great deal of difference when you shake yourself about constantly in the political winds.
That is funny! ; )
Yes, he was definitely on my extremely long list of incompetent world leaders. He is Trump lite.
Jair Bolsonapsehole
Oh my word, you just made me blow my Coca-Cola up my nose!
Bruce, I don't know which day recently you mentioned a book that sounded really interesting. Can you post the title again?
I think you meant the book "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz. It's in paperback so not exorbitantly priced. The other "Spying on the South" was his last book before his untimely death in 2019. Here's his website
https://tonyhorwitz.com/books/
Brexit.....Silly idea unfortunately supported by a majority of the population and looking at the abysmal functionning of the EU one can understand them. The artists that "fled" to Europe have new set of problems as they are non-european workers...a different kettle of fish if you didn't have a few years residency prior to brexit .... they sought to avoid the visa and work-permits intricacies with which Brussels is now plaguing those who didn't and are called to perform in the EU.
Johnson is popular again because his vaccination effort "was up to snuff".....and his political opposition is wallowing in the depths of mediocrity. Could chznge with his next tomfoolery!
Oops, Macron, not Sarkozy. I noted your correction below.
Sarkozy was very competent...not so Micron despite getting the formers advice in private. NZ had a very effective, decisive leader and did very well. German health system is managed by the Regional Governments...the Länder...and not Mrs Merkel....there might be something there! Closer to the people perhaps?
Firstly, Sarkozy hasn't been President for 9 years...its Macron...or Micron now that we know him better. Secondly, the intersectionality Studies movements etc started initially, i seem to recollect, with french academics that had set up in US Universities. It's being imported into Britain too. Thirdly, they have been taken over on the streets here by many possibly doubtful radical organizations and by academic politics by student unions and staff in Sociology etc departments and they are acting in a highly autocratic manner...very clear case of "cancel culture" i'm afraid pushing out any contradiction. The government, which controls the universities sees this as a uniquely ideological deviation from academic pursuits and is moaning without doing very much...as they are afraid of being labeled "racist" . Not much free speech i'm afraid.
Sorry--Macron of course. It's super early in the morning here and I am stuck in Zoom conference sessions all weekend so my brain is not functioning all that well!. Actually intersectionality is a term coined by the US sociologist Kimberlé Crenshaw, which she adopted as an approach to issues of race and gender when she was a doctoral student. If you read her work, as well as Patricia Hill Collins's work on intersectionality, you will see that it is an important way of presenting the unique ways that race, gender, social class, religion "intersect" to produce an individual's experience in the world. It has been watered down--perhaps deliberately by people who don't like to think of, for instance, Black and Brown women in the USA being particularly disadvantaged by the intersection of race and gender--but it really does have important things to say. And Crenshaw is one of the most interesting scholars out there today in feminist (as a generic term that includes intersectionality, queer theory, etc) theory.
Unfortunately this leads to seeing a population as a collection of communities which disturbs me. It tends in my mind to seperate people and pit them against each other when we should be collectively striving to render justice in society and understand our history. We have enough difficulties here with the islamic radicals effectively and violently ceceding their neighbouhood from the nation.
I much prefer to consider people as part of a whole and not because they are part of a ?isible" minority. We're all in this together....even the "white european male" .
Actually, in my experience it has the opposite effect. The recognition that, say, a gay person is not JUST a gay person but is also in many cases also Black and female emphasizes that we can't generalize about a category of person but must take each one as an individual. Of course, an even more cogent view of intersectionality is reflected in MLK's statement that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
― John Donne
[Change man to human]
She has a GREAT TED talk!
You mean Crenshaw? (Not sure which she you meant).
I thought Sarkozy had been indicted recently for some previous corruption.
Yes but will be thrown out of court at some point......as with everything else they have tried to smear him with. These are the weapons that the system uses to stop people they don't like getting power.
It all seems like such a waste of energy. My French relatives would always complain or disparage of whoever was in power almost like a national taunting sport.
Being a senior I was able to be vaccinated in February and am very thankful for that. My older son got his first shot just over a week ago, his wife (a bit younger) is still trying. Then there is Japan - a son and family live there. The vaccine roll out there makes states like Mississippi look good. They have approved just one vaccine for use - have not started to work on their own vaccine yet so are dependent upon imports. They have just started to roll out vaccination for health care workers and in a week or so make it available for seniors but the pace is very slow due to lack of vaccines and a reluctance on the part of the Japanese leadership (almost all elderly males) to come to grips with the reality of their situation. The virus is not going away - they may be an island and be able to keep non-Japanese residents out - but it is spreading internally. Yet in July they have the Olympics with athletes and support staff coming- and vaccination for them not required. There is little to nothing in the US press about this but will be come summer when Japan has a tidal wave of infections. The US does not have a monopoly on shortsighted national leadership. I write this not to excuse US shortsighted leadership under "45" but to say that stupidity about epidemics knows no international borders. And a country where the government is controlled by a sclerotic leadership that does not respond to public pressure can do immense harm by its inability to act quickly and understand that hope is not a solution.
It is hard to imagine the Olympics happening in Japan this summer without disaster.
Only japanese residents need apply for tickets already and its not sure there'll be other athletes either to watch......the Japanese Games!
Agreed. Cancel before more $$$ is wasted and more people get sick.
It's not just national leadership that's stumbled in the US., states have not been ordering their full allotment of vaccine which impacts availability to those in need. The other thing I find puzzling is the ability for folks to sign up on multiple vaccine appointment registries, which are not linked to one another, including private healthcare providers, hospitals, state, county, VA, drugstore, Wal-Mart and then not cancel their other appointment requests once they've secured an appointment for their (1st) dose. (I know my MIL had registered on 4 sites. She did not cancel the other 3 until we asked her if she'd done so. It never occurred to her.)
Because of the distribution process in Yucatán my husband and are going to fly to the US for our vaccines. Counterintuitive, maybe. But for Mérida alone less than 200k vaccines were delivered to get the ball rolling for those over 60. As of 2021, the popultion is Mérida is 1,181,000 with approximately 11% over the age of 60. The vaccines are given (mostly) at neighborhood sites (good) but they are first come, first serve, no appointments - just queue up and wait out of doors to maybe get a jab (bad). Many folks have stood and waited for hours only to learn all the vaccines alotted to the site have been given. Today it's going to be 104° or more. As a redhead, you will never find me standing out of doors for an extended period of time for anything, ever.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/09/vaccine-distribution-delays/
When I had hair color I was a redhead, when I had hair.
There ya have it! We're kindred spirits!
Your description of the problem with people signing up on multiple sites and then failing to cancel is spot on. A friend tried repeatedly to sign up and was told "the waiting list is full" - only to learn that those who signed up failed to show up. It has been a source of much consternation. Fortunately, he finally managed to get his first shot, which does guarantee a date for the second shot. Lines here have been incredibly long and there have been literally DAYS when no vaccine was available at all within a 50 miles radius.
There is general stupidity, and there was an intentional non-action of a duplicitous nature from the so-called "leaders" of our past regime.
Your comments on Japan duly noted. LOL (50-year Japan resident) Vaccine roll out --Japan vs MS, huh? apples & oranges
Update on vaccine in Japan (in English) https://tokyo-living.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-8-dr-gautam-deshpande-X6ESDYIQ
All the best for your son and his family.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Looking through the lens of the Republican ideology that a strong central government should have no role to play in our society, it's no surprise that the previous administration handled the pandemic as they did. More's the pity that there seems to be strong support for this ideology as millions of Americans are reluctant to follow the advice to continue to mask, social distance, et cetera, let alone receive the vaccine. I wonder, however, if it would get more anti-vaxers on board if the Biden administration were to put out a statement crediting the previous administration for the success of Operation Warp Speed in producing these vaccines so quickly. Just a thought.
On a personal note, yesterday (Friday) a small impromptu "party" ensued during our 15-minute wait post-vaccine administration. It all got started when I asked the 80+-year-old wheelchair- bound woman how good her "driver" was as she was wheeled toward us. We attracted the attention of one volunteer who approached us, applauding our lively discourse. A good time was had by all, but sadly, there will be no reunion as no names or contact info was exchanged!
Hi Lynell, just a thought but the boss of Pfizer made it very clear when he announced the new vaccine after Trump's defeat that he had in no way benefited from money from Trump's program. So perhaps not all up to the then WH and OWS after all.
The only beneficiaries of all things Trump are Trump and those that are pleasing him in the moment.
And Pfizer blotted their copybook by not announcing just before the election!
Thanks, Stuart. I just read about that and posted it elsewhere here. Without going into a deep dive, I was trying to figure out a way to get more people on board with taking the vaccine. My mistake!!
Honorable intent, Lynell. Since most of these anti-vaxers (or just nervous folks) aren't going to check a Pfizer or J&J source, I say no harm in claiming it. Could save a life or 2,000.
Fight the good fight!
Was Warp Speed really all that fast? Seems to me it was late getting started and how effective was it prior to Jan 6th?
It's no secret that Johnson & Johnson has been having manufacturing difficulties. Although its Aug. 5 Operation Warp Speed contract says it expected to deliver 37 million doses by the end of March, that goal had shrunk to 20 million doses, as Dr. Richard Nettles, vice president of medical affairs for the company's pharmaceutical division, told a congressional subcommittee on Feb. 23. From NPR today.
Thanks for this, Susan. Here is an article written back in Nov. 2020 which says Warp Speed got started in May 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/operation-warp-speed-trump-pfizer-moderna-vaccine-1.5806820
However, this NY Times article (11/2020) elaborates on Pfizer participation: "Pfizer has distanced itself from Mr. Trump and Operation Warp Speed. In an interview on Sunday, Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said, 'We were never part of the Warp Speed,' adding, 'we have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone.'
"On Monday, a spokeswoman for Pfizer clarified that the company is part of Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential coronavirus vaccine."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/health/was-the-pfizer-vaccine-part-of-the-governments-operation-warp-speed.html
This article further explains the FDA's review process which normally takes upwards of three years or more. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/fdas-drug-review-process-ensuring-drugs-are-safe-and-effective
Good morning, Lynell! Sounds like your "wait party" was a fabulous time. My wait parties were at the jail, hanging with deputies I've known for years but haven't seen for at least 5 years (including one whose child is transitioning female to male at age 18; I was the only co-worker he thought he could talk to when his son came to him about 7 years ago and told him who he was). My wife's wait was in the cab of the truck at the fairgrounds, but all the other vehicle occupants in our area were grinning and waving at one another.
Ally, yours and your wife's is a much more colorful experience than we had!!
Good morning, Lynell! Hooray for your jab!
The gods were with us, Daria. This morning's news reported that the vaccination site we visited yesterday is closed today and possibly tomorrow due to plumbing issues!
Lynell, Given all that, I am so glad you got your jab!
Morning Lynell. 😃 💕
Morning, David's!!!
Morning Lynell!! It's early on the 11th for me. Sat 4/10 was the best weather day of the year. I ache a bit from 3 hours of volleyball, but we put the hurt on the other team too.
Morning, TPJ!! Hooray for our team!!
Sorry, one other thing. In the aftermath of the election, Donald Trump showed his true colors. As Americans were dying every day, he barely mentioned the Covid crisis. Instead, his focus was on pushing the Big Lie of election fraud. The blame for not calling him out on his narcissism falls squarely on his supporters' shoulders. His lack of character, integrity, honor and empathy meant nothing to millions of Americans, who chose to focus on his lies. Shame on them. Shame on us.
And, sadly, they have not gone away. We will be dealing with all of this again in 2022 and 2024 and beyond.