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You are here: Home / Politics / Glibertarianism / ETA: A Title Would Help

ETA: A Title Would Help

by Tom Levenson|  March 24, 20203:43 pm| 59 Comments

This post is in: Glibertarianism, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality

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Here’s a cheery little musical interlude to take our minds off (not really) the horrors around us.

A song.

Let’s let all the old people die
Grandma and grandpa had long happy lives
Now let’s let them sacrifice
Themselves to the stock market

This is America, land of the free
Mightiest, greatest, best country
Where you work a lifetime to the bone
And then we just let you die pic.twitter.com/MYnS6iZt1e

— New podcast! As It Happens: Song A Day (@songadaymann) March 24, 2020

Gallows humor is better than no humor at all, I guess.

In other notes, check out this map of rural hospital closings since 2002–most since 2010, after red states decided they didn’t need no stinking Medicaid expansion. Details here.

And with that, open thread.

Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Old Man in an Armchair, 1652.

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Previous Post: « Free Online Concerts
Next Post: Area Clown Dabbles in Medical Cosplay »

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 24, 2020 at 3:47 pm

    Tom Nichols@RadioFreeTom · 2h
    Trump has now set Easter as the date for having the country “opened up and raring to go.” Fox anchor says “That would be a great American resurrection!”

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    Tom, did you forget to give your post a title?  Or is this no title thing a form of protest?

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    “The title of this post restricted to topmost level security clearance only.”

    :)

  4. 4.

    Hunter Gathers

    March 24, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: 

    He needs to have rented rooms at his hotels soon, or he’ll miss his loan payments to Vlad, who will have no choice but to raise the vig.

  5. 5.

    raven

    March 24, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    Seems like there are a lot more closed hospitals than that in Georgia.

  6. 6.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    Rural hospital closures and a staggering shortfall of medical providers in rural areas are two enormous problems in the country right now that get next to no media coverage.

    I always laugh when I see right-wing rural people comment about how independent they are, and they make comments like, “We grow all the food!”. I always want to reply, “And we provide all your medical care!”.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 24, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @WaterGirl:  “Dr Fauci’s great-great-great (x 7) grandfather, reacting to a demented burgher’s plans to address a recurrence of the Black Death”

  8. 8.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    March 24, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    I’m sure we’re all getting a crash course in videoconference software.

    Zoom has been a standout in the field. I’m amazed when you have the “gallery view” (thumbnails of everybody on the call), how social it feels. Sure it’s not totally the same as a face-to-face experience, and when multiple start talking the lags get kind of wonky. But it’s about as close as you can get, and it’s genuine human interaction.

    The only problem is that one person who doesn’t understand the concept of “mute”.

  9. 9.

    zhena gogolia

    March 24, 2020 at 3:54 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    A friend of mine wanted to know why we didn’t have a feature where we could mute selected other people.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: hahahahaha

    nicely done

    edit: I’m actually pretty impressed that the flyouts could handle a post with no title.  It says “Next Post”.  well done, guys!

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 24, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    @zhena gogolia: I don’t use zoom, but I suspect that with all this teleconferencing there are gonna be a lot of “I thought I had hit mute when I said that my boss could fuck up a peanut-butter sandwich” stories

    ETA: Joe Biden coming up on MSNBC, for those interested

  12. 12.

    mad citizen

    March 24, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    The Nacissist in Chief has caused me to know sooo many things about him over these years. So thanks/no thanks to the juicer the other day who wrote “he’s doing the accordian thing again” when he makes shit up. It’s all I see now. And this moment, it is the picture on cnn.com, doing an outside concert today.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 3:57 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: that was worth a laugh out loud!

  14. 14.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    March 24, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’re now over 50,000 cases nationwide and nearly 700 deaths. Those numbers have doubled in 3 days. They’re likely to be big enough by Easter that even with Fox beating the drums, his cultists may not be totally convinced.

    This is my favorite site right now for COVID stats.

  15. 15.

    Nicole

    March 24, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Ha!  My 9-year-old had a video conference via Zoom with some of his classmates and NONE of them understood “mute.”  The parent who orchestrated it finally had to mute them all and then unmute them one at a time. I wanted to give him a medal after it was over.

  16. 16.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    Just a fun fact while we all mope.  I found and am trying to reanimate some Loofa seeds from my wife’s grandmother.  Everyone in that female line is now gone.  But maybe the seeds will make it and provide me with scrub pads for the rest of my life?  Hoping!

  17. 17.

    Nicole

    March 24, 2020 at 3:59 pm

    Also, that song is awesome.  The DNC should get the rights from the guy and do commercials starting off with the Lt Governor’s comment and then a montage of Trump, McConnell, Collins, et al, set to the song.  They could run it between now and November.

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 24, 2020 at 4:00 pm

    @mad citizen: now I’m picturing Jared in one of those little red hats and matching vest

  19. 19.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    March 24, 2020 at 4:02 pm

    @Nicole: The parent who orchestrated it finally had to mute them all and then unmute them one at a time.

    You can do that? I didn’t think the moderator has that much power. All we’ve figured out is that you can have people default to “mute” when they join, and then they have to manually unmute.

  20. 20.

    Nicole

    March 24, 2020 at 4:02 pm

    @Immanentize: I initially misread “everyone in that female line is now gone” to refer to the loofah seeds, not your wife’s family line. I thought, “They can sort loofahs by sex? HOW?”  And that those would be some highfalutin’ loofah seeds, to have a pedigree and all.

    And then I figured it out.  It’s been a long day.  As they all are right now.

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    March 24, 2020 at 4:03 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    The only problem is that one person who doesn’t understand the concept of “mute”.

    There are some videos floating around Twitter etc. of kindergarten classes that are being held via Zoom. Six year olds are not, as a rule, skilled at proper Mute etiquette.

  22. 22.

    Feathers

    March 24, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    Ireland has nationalized their private hospitals.

    Health Minister Simon Harris said patients with Covid-19 will be treated for free in a single national hospital service. Mr Harris said all private hospitals will be public or run by the State for the duration of the pandemic. He said: “There can be no public vs private here.”

  23. 23.

    Nicole

    March 24, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I know when I did a play reading with my theater company last week that the guy orchestrating it was able to mute individuals in the call and then unmute them.  I think it may have to be the person who sets up the call, but yeah, I think they can mute and unmute other people on the call.

  24. 24.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    March 24, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    Fucking SBA – I couldn’t come up with a worse process if I tried.  The website is straight out of 1998, where you have major lags on every single task, documents cannot be uploaded per page (only as you go down), and multiply repetitive questions don’t autofill.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    March 24, 2020 at 4:05 pm

    @zhena gogolia

    Topical detour to mention to you that recently came across a mouth-watering bread baking web site in Russian.

  26. 26.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:05 pm

    Also, why are people not blasting, on repeat, Race for the Prize by Flaming Lips?. I am:

    Two scientists are racing
    For the good of all mankind
    Both of them side-by-side
    So determined

    Locked in heated battle
    For the cure that is their prize
    But it’s so dangerous
    But they’re determined

    Theirs is to win
    If it kills them
    They’re just humans
    With wives and children

  27. 27.

    scav

    March 24, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    Every town could have its own Tomb of the Unknown Consumer.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @Nicole: I really think most would consider Loofas male.  Amirite?

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 4:07 pm

    @Feathers: “There can be no public vs. private here.”

    I am nodding.

  30. 30.

    zhena gogolia

    March 24, 2020 at 4:08 pm

    @NotMax:

    Wow, looks great. I love that kind of bread.

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 4:08 pm

    Tom, I will love you forever for posting that song.

  32. 32.

    mad citizen

    March 24, 2020 at 4:12 pm

    @Immanentize: Big Flaming Lips fan here.  I think I started with album–great piece of art.  I listended to the latest yesterday on amazon–the Deap Lips.  So in the spirit of BJ, this catchy tune “the motherfuckers got to go” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=270LoUXWWxY

    I found that worldometer site a couple weeks ago for all the virus numbers–great site.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    @Immanentize: You mean falafel?

  34. 34.

    FlyingToaster

    March 24, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: My daughter has been in school since last Tuesday via Zoom. Weekdays, every hour from 9-3, 4 core courses plus 1 elective daily, plus check-ins with individual teachers during lunch (12-1).  Saturday Music School, theory class and group violins.  Spring play rehearsals Fridays afterschool, Strings TourGroup rehearsals weekend evenings.

    Zoom rocks, and kids seem to figure out the controls faster than their instructors.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    March 24, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    That is one catchy song.  (Kind of hesitated on that adjective.)

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    @FlyingToaster: Mr. Suzanne is a special educator. Most of his students can’t do online education.

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    March 24, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    @Immanentize:

    I once scored a crew pass that somebody left on the ground a few hours before the start of a big music festival – I got to be on the stage with the Flaming Lips, handed ’em a little of their makeup and costumery, but was mainly a useless stagehand.

    It was awesome looking out at a large, screaming audience.

  38. 38.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    @Suzanne:. Never saw a Loofa on the vine, huh? Or Animal House? Sensuous or sensual?

  39. 39.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:23 pm

    @mad citizen:
    Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

    My fave.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    @Elizabelle: Someone, somewhere, will figure out how to have 100 older people singing that song, simultaneously, with each face in their own little window on the same screen.

  41. 41.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:25 pm

    @WaterGirl: Zoom of course

  42. 42.

    Tom Levenson

    March 24, 2020 at 4:27 pm

    @WaterGirl: Forgot.

    See belated fix.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    @Immanentize: I didn’t know if Zoom could handle 100. :-)

    BTW, are you still planning on writing the ZOOM guest post?  Looks like it would help more than just the distance teaching people.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    @Tom Levenson: It made me laugh!

    edit: I was impressed!  My RSS reader made the title:

    Here’s a cheery little musical interlude to take our mi…

    Just from your introductory line.

  45. 45.

    Caroline Abbott

    March 24, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    Close a rural hospital, and the doctors and PAs leave because they can’t care adequately for their patients. Nurses and medical technicians leave because they lack patients and places to treat them.
    The cascade of loss hits hospital housekeeping, launderers, security, IT folk, nutrition support, and a host of other jobs.

    Attorneys, accountants, banks, and others whose income is partly dependent upon the town’s medical profession can’t pay their mortgages. They leave town.

    Soon the public schools’ enrollment drops, reducing the amount of state money allotted. Classes are strained. Teachers and administrators start to leave.

    Local sales and property taxes falter as the tax base dries up. If the hospital was financed in some part by local bonds, that burden gets carried by fewer and lower income residents. Eventually the local governments’ bond ratings fall, making it more difficult to invest in infrastructure.

    Area residents eventually stop buying as much at the regional Walmart (which long ago replaced most local small businesses) because they don’t have income to spend. Walmart leaves, or lays off workers (too little demand even for on-demand shifts) and stocks less inventory.

    It’s not pretty. I’ve watched it in Oklahoma for too long to be anything but horrified, especially when rural residents are left with little choice in an epidemic but to travel to other towns for basic needs, thereby raising their potential for exposure to diseases for which they will not be able to find treatment.

  46. 46.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:31 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Nice.

  47. 47.

    Immanentize

    March 24, 2020 at 4:33 pm

    @WaterGirl: I’m finishing this brief by Thursday — after that?

    BTW, zoom better be able to handle 100.  That’s the usual number in my crim. class

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2020 at 4:37 pm

    @Immanentize: Ummm…. Google “Bill O’Reilly loofah”.

    NSFW.

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    March 24, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    @WaterGirl: @Immanentize:

    It would sure help me – going to look into having a first reading via Zoom for my play production!

  50. 50.

    FlyingToaster

    March 24, 2020 at 4:39 pm

    @Suzanne: Only half of our school can.  The rest are too young for Chromebooks and Zoom; they’re getting e-mailed homework packets and links to videos for tablets.

    So much of what’s done in PK and K is interpersonal skills and setup for how to learn. This is not going to go well.

    My god(less)son — now aged out of school — is on the spectrum; his wiring lent itself well to remote learning, but that is so not true for most non-neurotypical students.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    March 24, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    @Caroline Abbott: Yep. In many rural places, the local hospital or health system is the largest employer. So I don’t have much patience for rural right-wingers blathering on and on about how self-reliant they all are.

  52. 52.

    JaySinWA

    March 24, 2020 at 4:44 pm

    @Immanentize: It’s what Zoom claims as to support for their minimal plans, You can support more for a price. As to whether it actually works, I can’t say.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    March 24, 2020 at 4:47 pm

    @WaterGirl: Cool ..   I would love to use something besides google duo for facetime with my one year old grandson.    I have puppets coming so I can keep him excited for more than a minute or two.

  54. 54.

    Yutsano

    March 24, 2020 at 4:49 pm

    @Caroline Abbott: And the people left blame libruls, black and brown folks, queers, and abortion for their situations. Everything to not point the fingers at themselves and figure hey maybe what we’re doing doesn’t work anymore.

  55. 55.

    Feathers

    March 24, 2020 at 4:59 pm

    @Suzanne: Sarah Taber @sarahtaber_bww tweets frequently about how rural America is basically ruled by land barons who control the state legislatures. They maintain control of the local population by demanding low taxes and thus zero social safety net. Saw it in upstate New York dairy country.

  56. 56.

    Keithly

    March 24, 2020 at 5:06 pm

    @JaySinWA: My home institution, Enormous State University, has an institutional license that has successfully hosted up to 300 participants.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    March 24, 2020 at 5:16 pm

    @Immanentize: Sounds good!

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    March 24, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    @Suzanne:

    What a playah! [eyeroll to the point of damage]

  59. 59.

    Kattails

    March 24, 2020 at 6:59 pm

    @Tom Levenson: I always enjoy your artwork selections, thanks! Good post even if it’s going kind of incognito.

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