Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Let there be snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Friday Morning Open Thread: TGIF, for Damned Sure

Friday Morning Open Thread: TGIF, for Damned Sure

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Thanks to commentor Debbie (Aussie). I like the idea of a national anthem that people could actually sing, y’know? (And one stanza is plenty, although I think much could be done with stanzas 3 & 4 of ‘America the Beautiful’… )

The world changes, and sensible people change with it…


Good on Charlie Baker, despite his (R) credentials. For one thing, there’s many thousand people need a job right now, and surely we can find enough candidates to do this job right. For another, yeah, there’s a great many bored/anxious programmers at loose ends in the Boston area right now… and if you don’t think some of those programs would find a way to hack ‘an app’ within the first day it was released, you don’t have my faith in the ingenuity of Masshole (and LiveFreeOrDieTrying) tech geeks.

… “It’s not cheap,” Governor Baker, a Republican, said. “But the way I look at it, the single biggest challenge we’re going to have is giving people confidence and comfort that we know where the virus is.”

The state is currently experiencing a surge of cases that is expected to last for the next week, after which it may start to consider easing social-distancing rules. Robust contact tracing, combined with ramped-up testing, could smooth that process, the governor said.

“It’s hard to see how we create a sense of safety if we don’t have a program like this in place,” he said…

The Massachusetts program is staged by the nonprofit Partners in Health, whose doctors have led responses to infectious disease — Ebola, Zika, drug-resistant tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid fever, among others — in the world’s poorest countries.

It is built around one-on-one telephone interviews of newly diagnosed patients and their contacts, so that subjects must answer the phone when it rings. Paul Farmer, a physician-anthropologist and one of the group’s founders, said there was no substitute for the bond of trust formed by a human contact tracer.

“Somebody needs to say to people who are worried and not feeling well, ‘We got you,’” he said. “‘If this is Covid-19, we got you. And we’ll look out for your contacts, your spouse and your children.’ And I think that’s another thing you can do remotely or virtually, is reassure people that there is no reason to believe everything is lost.”…

“I have people reaching out to me all day with theoretical things that we could do, God love ’em,” he said. He said he had also heard from “everyone who had a phone-pinging program,” and that digital tracing may be integrated into the state’s program later, but that human outreach was critical to reaching people without an easy way to isolate themselves.

“You’ve got to be able to connect to people in some way that’s meaningful that’s beyond a ping on the phone,” he said.

Already, Massachusetts’ local departments of health had been carrying out contact tracing, assisted by 1,700 volunteers from the state’s academic public health community…

Read the whole thing. People want to help — people want something to do besides sit & worry. This is good!

Reader Interactions

201Comments

  9. 9.

    Baud

    WaPo

    Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Thursday that he has started assembling a presidential transition team and is considering whether to elevate an official tasked with addressing pandemics to his Cabinet.

    Speaking at a virtual fundraiser, Biden said the process has been underway for several weeks. The former vice president effectively clinched the nomination just last week, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his campaign.

    Discussions are underway about the prospect of elevating some White House offices to Cabinet-level positions, Biden said. Among those that will be under consideration for the Cabinet: The Office of Science and Technology Policy; the global health security pandemic office; and a separate climate change operation that “goes beyond the EPA,” he said.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @rikyrah: yeah, was going to hit the senior hour at my local store, but I’m not desperate for anything I’m almost out of and it’s really coming down here, a fine wet snow. I can wait until Monday.

  18. 18.

    PST

    @rikyrah: I tried to tell Bernie we could try going out tomorrow, but she wasn’t having any of it. We got home with lots of snowflakes in her fur. It’s actually kind of pretty out there, with wet snow sticking to the branches.

  20. 20.

    satby

    @PST: One of the two dogs I still have is a short hair beagle mix (Bubba), the other a fluffy haired border collie -rottie mix (Clayton- I don’t rename older dogs when they get to me). Bubba did his business in a rush to get back inside, Clayton was happy as a clam to wander around enjoying the snow until we were both covered.

  21. 21.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @satby: Frost warnings here. I put seedlings out in pots in March and have brought them back inside at least 3 times.

  22. 22.

    JMG

    Snow here tonight. Maybe as much as six inches, although probably a good deal less. So it’s the early morning old folks supermarket hour for me today. Such an odd rush of both pleasure (outside! A routine chore!) and anxiety (other people, oh no!).

  23. 23.

    Immanentize

    @Van Buren: Anniversary for marriage?  You might not feel like celebrating but you ought to do so. For whether it is a one year anniversary or fifty, marriage is tricky business and appreciating milestones is a great way to recognize all that you both poured into the union.

    Happy Anniversary!  ?

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s National Security Council just texted the whole country to tell us NO Ramadhan bazaars will be allowed this year. (Ramadhan begins next week.) I’m not surprised at all.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Other than it being less crowded, is there an advantage to the senior hours, like having hard-to-find stuff in stock?

  28. 28.

    satby

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: We had hard freezes the previous two nights but only a frost last night. Three nights in a row of below freezing! No matter how nice it gets I just never risk putting anything out before the middle of May up here, which is still early. So my seedlings are still under the grow lights in my kitchen. Doing ok there, at least. I just can’t wait to get the big tropical plants out of my house though. After this summer not sure the banana tree will be able to fit back inside.

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    Since it is Good Friday according to the Orthodox calendar, two items.  First, the WaPo manages to write a front-page article, with photo, about the coronavirus situation at the Pecherska Lavra monastery in Kyiv  (that I’ve commented on here) without mentioning the key fact in the entire situation – that the monastery is under the political and ecclesiastical control of Moscow. The churches and monasteries that are under the political and ecclesiastical control of Kyiv are doing fine, as they obeyed government guidelines. It’s the salient fact, and is never mentioned. Truly remarkable reportage.

    On a lighter note, I hope this is visible to those without a Facebook account, as that is unfortunately the only place he’s posted this video, but a guy singing “Khrystos Vosres” (Христос Воскрес, or Christ is Risen in Ukrainian) in multi-part harmony with himself.

  32. 32.

    Leto

    Morning all. Sunny here for the moment, but it’s supposed to rain later and carry on through tomorrow.Also it’s cold and windy. The cold wouldn’t be so bad but the wind has been non-stop for the past two days and I’m over it.

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    Well just north of Boston, tonight we may get three inches of sleet then snow etc. crap.  Proof there is no global warming.
    Checkmate libtards!

  36. 36.

    PST

    It was mentioned yesterday, but worth noting again that Brian Dennehy has died (not of COVID-19). I was lucky enough to see him play Willy Loman at the Goodman in Chicago 20 years ago. The first thing I usually think of when I hear that name is Cocoon, but he was a familiar face we’ve all seen a hundred times. Death of a Salesman is so overwrought and emotional that it is easy to parody. Dennehy was great at taking big, flamboyant characters and making you take them seriously. May he rest in peace.

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:

    Indeed. Ramadhan bazaars are where we get most of the delicacies for breaking fast, which are also popular with non-Muslims. And the traders are going to be hit hard by the loss of income opportunity, not only at the bazaars but also for Eid. Many of them take orders for festive entrees and desserts.

    I don’t expect the current Movement Control Order to end in time for Eid al-Fitri at the end of Ramadhan. In fact, I think the MCO will still be on through Haj season a couple of months later.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    Jamelle Bouie with the big-picture take in today’s NYT: trumpov and his allies don’t want Americans gettin’ any big ideas

    There’s no guarantee that Americans will respond to the pandemic and economic collapse with support for more and greater assistance from the federal government. But the possibility is there and it will become more apparent the longer this continues. If the rolling depressions of the late 19th century disrupted the social order enough to open the space for political radicalism — from the agrarian uprising of the Farmers’ Alliance to the militant agitation of the industrial labor movement — then the one-two punch of the Great Recession and the Pandemic Depression might do the same for us
    In which case, it makes all the sense in the world for Trump, the Republican Party and the conservative movement to push for the end of the lockdown, public health be damned. After years of single-minded devotion, the conservative movement is achingly close to dismantling the New Deal political order and turning the clock back to when capital could act without limits or restraints.
    But in trying to destroy the administrative state — in trying to make government small enough to “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” — conservatives left the country vulnerable to a deadly disease that has undermined that project and galvanized its opponents.
    And all of this is happening as one of the most progressive generations in history begins to take its place in our politics, its views informed by two decades of war and economic crisis.

  41. 41.

    Karen S.

    Good morning, everyone. Woke up about half an hour ago and it’s snowing here (Chicago). I hadn’t planned on going out today so it’s not that big of a deal. At least it was sunny yesterday. Depending on how much work I get done today, I may make a loaf of Dutch oven bread. I baked yesterday, some cornbread muffins to go with the beans and ham soup I made yesterday. I’m taking some of the soup and muffins out to my parents when my wife and I go see them tomorrow to help them out around their house.

  42. 42.

    Immanentize

    @Amir Khalid: we all have been wondering what the other side of a deadly pandemic will look like. People quickly think of restaurants, movie theaters, and malls and realize that people are just not going to be so eager to get together in large groups. But I have been wondering what the effects on religious gatherings and customary celebrations there will be. I’m pretty confident church attendance will drop way off here — particularly in the established churches which actually care about souls in this world as much as the imagined next.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:Meh. We’ve never celebrated an anniversary. I’m really not sure how many years but I do know it’s 6/13. However, when the day comes I will be completely oblivious of it.

    When my wife and I first started getting serious I told her that if that kind of stuff was important to her she should go find someone else. She says the cup of coffee in bed I bring her every morning means a lot more to her than flowers and another useless bauble ever could.

  48. 48.

    Tdjr

    @PST: Loved that man! My favorite role was the sheriff in Silverado. He played a nasty character with so much charm and humor, you had to like him.

  49. 49.

    Leto

    @Baud: Just salt of the earth, small town working class voters expressing their patriotism by… *checks notes* bringing firearms to a demonstration while not wearing any PPE, nor following any medical safety guidelines, during the middle of global health pandemic that’s ravaging their state, all the while demanding that every non-willing/non-able body be thrown back into the great wood chipper messiah known as: ECONOMY! (Praise be, praise be!)

  50. 50.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s the Immp’s birthday Monday.  We will certainly mark that anniversary!   

    Every so many years it falls on Patriot’s Day, which it does this year. Normally. A recreation of Paul Revere’s ride from Boston to Lexington comes right up the street at the end of our block. And they change horses at a park less than a half mile from my house. I love the scene. Police motorcycles clearing traffic. Then the clip clopping of a wool attired Revere yelling, “The Regulars are out!”. And the horses are beautiful and are willing to be petted by the children in the neighborhood who don’t see many horses in their lives.

    Not gonna happen this year.

  51. 51.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: maybe you can send a quick email to your university librarians asking them that, specifically about how society responded after some of the great global pandemics that have hit us? Thinking 1918 Spanish Flu and the Black Death.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:

    It’s going to be late in the year, I think, before the muftis here dare allow Friday prayers again. They make the decision, and the Sultan/King just issues the decree. Per the BBC’s liveblog, some imams in Pakistan want to hold prayers with social distancing in the congregation; I really don’t think that will work.

    I agree; people will be cautious about going to malls and houses of worship and sports venues for some time after lockdowns are lifted. They will be worried as well about workplaces and schools. The spirit of lockdown is going to linger.

  53. 53.

    Sloane Ranger

    Hi everyone. Just got back from my weekly shop and decompressing.

    The British House of Commons is also looking to go at least partially online. It makes sense.

  54. 54.

    Immanentize

    @Leto: Good idea!  I get the sense they are rather bored….  But the religion scene is so different in this country than it was then.  People are trending away from religion here.  I think in the teens, the churches were still one of the most critical centers of community.  Here in Medford MA, old timers still name neighborhoods by parish.  I would be found in the St. Rafe’s neighborhood.

  56. 56.

    Punchy

    @Immanentize: Restaurants are a special form of screwed.  Few non-MAGAs are going to willingly sit next to complete strangers, and even moreso the minute someone….anyone…begins to cough (for any reason).  How they survive with ~40% of their regular biz is the huge question.  I think take-away is the new normal.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: I am bad at all that stuff. My wife’s B-day is 4/15. All this past wkend I kept telling myself, “I gotta remember. I gotta remember. I gotta remember” and when Wednesday came?

    Pbththththththththth…

    I can’t even remember my own birthday.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @Punchy: I like to cook but I also like to go out occassonally to get something I wouldn’t do at home.  Also, lunches when I am in the office again.  I am pretty sure I will be bringing my own to work.  I don’t see it coming back quickly because it is kind of a luxury event — going out to eat.  Maybe select Covid-free dining clubs will be the next thing.

  63. 63.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: That’s true, but I think from a behavioral point there might be some things in common between the ages. I think it’ll be a long time before we thing again that we consider “normal”. Also that Paul Revere parade route sounds really fun!

  64. 64.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I can’t even remember my own birthday.

    That sounds like a blessing. I’m working hard to forget mine.

    ETA. Re: your wife’s birthday — at least in normal years it is also tax day which I assume makes it easier to remember?

  65. 65.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Nope, you have to sign into Facebook.

    Our mayor has displeased me by posting his informational essays about Covid on Facebook instead of some publicly accessible platform.

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    @p.a.: Kevin Bacon’s dead too?!  Because that’s the only way Betsy Palmer’s ghost could kill him hundreds of times.

    (No, no, Kevin Bacon is alive and well.)

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    @Amir Khalid: Any businesses thinking of doing catering/delivery type things instead?

    How can you get through this without TREATS?

    This is my cats’ opinion when their special treat box was delayed for three whole weeks.

  72. 72.

    eric

    @Punchy: Also, i believe chewing is as bad as coughing for launching the virus into the air.  you are also using silverware and plates and glasses and chairs that get touched over and over again even after they are washed.  Gyms may also have a real problem given that sanitizing every machine after one use may be a real challenge.  Plus, i think many people are gonna wait to see how reliable antibody tests are before they brace themselves for a restaurant.

  74. 74.

    germy

    @debbie:

    Other than it being less crowded, is there an advantage to the senior hours, like having hard-to-find stuff in stock?

    My local grocer used to be open 24 hours.  Now they close overnight for restocking and sanitizing.  It opens at 6am now (old folks shopping time is 6am-7am) and the theory is that with everything freshly sanitized, it’s less likely us old folks will be exposed germs.

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    @Leto

    Surprisingly information packed look (for a program of only about 45 minutes) at some of the ways society in London dealt with the plague available on Prime, Return of the Black Death.

  76. 76.

    geg6

    @debbie:

    That’s my plan for today.  The last thing on my calendar today is our Director of Academic Affairs has asked me to be there at the faculty zoom meeting at noon to discuss how the C19 grading system will affect financial aid eligibility (note: it mostly won’t).  After that, I need a few things, so I’m heading to the one and only grocery store in the county that sells wine and to Target, mainly because I have a gift card I got for Christmas and can pick up everything else I need there.  It’s less crowded than the grocery stores or Walmart, so I’m hoping it will feel more like a normal shopping run.

  79. 79.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Punchy: A friend of mine has a large extended family and lots of millennial nieces and nephews. Before the pandemic, they tended not to go out half as much as we did when we were younger, opting for takeout or delivery.

    Personally, my habits have changed too…tending to go out for lunch more than dinner (though never big on takeout). One thing I will sorely miss about dining out in proximity to strangers is the surprising conversations that can arise. Especially when traveling. I clearly remember a conversation with an older French couple in a restaurant in Rome…between my paltry French and their broken English, it was amazing any concept was exchanged, but there were smiles and hugs as we all got up to leave. Sad to say I don’t think that spontaneity will be returning anytime soon.

  80. 80.

    rp

    I wish someone would go to one of these protests with an airsoft rifle and start shooting people from a window or a car. It would be hilarious to see them panic and scatter.

  81. 81.

    germy

    So I see Dr. Phil went on Laura Ingraham’s show and called the quarantine unnecessary.

    It reminded me of the fact that he’s not a licensed doctor.  His license was taken away some years ago, and he is now an entertainer.

    Unfortunately, he’s not very entertaining either.

  83. 83.

    germy

    @rp:  That person would either be shot by protestors or the police.  And if he survived, he’d be arrested.

  84. 84.

    satby

    @eric: antibody tests will help, but a vaccine is necessary. And on one of the FB organizing pages for the Covid restriction protesters there were nearly universal comments about how they wouldn’t get a vaccine if one was developed.

    They’re the latest version of the Birch Society’s war on fluoridation.

  86. 86.

    satby

    @Sure Lurkalot: One thing I will sorely miss about dining out in proximity to strangers is the surprising conversations that can arise. Especially when traveling.

    The very best part of traveling! And one reason I don’t mind traveling solo.

  90. 90.

    WereBear

    @satby:

    one of the FB organizing pages for the Covid restriction protesters there were nearly universal comments about how they wouldn’t get a vaccine if one was developed

     
    Alternately, they will get one and lie.

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    there were nearly universal comments about how they wouldn’t get a vaccine if one was developed.

    Well, as long as they can be isolated from humans, I’m trying to see the downside.

    ETA: WereBear finds the flaw in the ointment.

  95. 95.

    germy

    After Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, explained the White House’s new guidelines for states to slowly reopen their economies in a three-phase process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham sought another opinion later in the show.

    She turned to Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, television psychologist to the masses.

    He acknowledged that the novel coronavirus is killing Americans — more than 33,000 as of early Friday — but also wondered why the economy would shut down over the pandemic but continues to function as people die from lung cancer, car crashes and pool drownings. (Unlike coronavirus, none of the causes of death listed by Dr. Phil are contagious.)

    “We don’t shut the country down for that,” said Dr. Phil, after he cited inaccurate statistics on accidental deaths. “Yet we are doing it for this and the fallout is going to last for years because people’s lives are being destroyed.”

    washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/17/dr-phil-fauci-coronavirus/

  96. 96.

    satby

    These stimulus payments are stressing me out a bit because the information is just so piecemeal. First, if you filed taxes in 2018-19 and direct deposit is on file with the IRS, the stimulus money will be deposited automatically, same with SS recipients. Then SS recipients will get it later. Then the tax filings from 2018-19 only count for automatic payments if you got a refund (I didn’t, I paid with automatic installments from my account). Now, they’re saying you may have it seized entirely if you’re subject to a garnishment from things like student loans, which my SS is. The IRS tool has been useless for getting a status update. I just wish I knew if it was coming or not because I have some repairs I was hoping it would cover.

    Edit: fixed typos and to add, my assumption right now is I’m not getting it.

  98. 98.

    MomSense

    I’m really missing my dishwasher. First world problem I know, but I do miss it.  My mom feels guilty about breaking it so she is busting her ass to do all the dishes quickly.  The catch is that between her vision problems and her depression survivor fixation on not wasting dish soap or water, we have to re-wash everything she washes.

    Ok, I’m going to try to work.  Stay safe, Jackals.

  100. 100.

    Leto

    @germy: Long term hate isn’t good for your health, but JFC they make it so hard to not hate them… I have these same morans (it’s an older reference sir, but it checks out) on my state sentor’s FaceBook feed posting the same shit. Luckily there seems to be more push back against those igmos, so I’m trying to keep on the bright side with that.

  102. 102.

    sdhays

    So, all the people dragging Nancy Pelosi for being a luddite for opposing to electronic voting are going to apologize now that she’s formulated an actual plan to make it a reality, right?

  103. 103.

    eric

    @SFAW: if i owned a restaurant, i would require id and a vaccine certification before you got to sit down.  no ticky, no eaty.  I am a private business, so i can.

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    @MomSense:

    Our microwave broke the other night. No big surprise, as it’s 30 years old. But normally you don’t just go out and replace appliances because they’re old — you just wait for them to break and then replace them! But now that’s not so easy. (Our dishwasher hasn’t worked in a while, but we hate it so that’s okay.) We keep telling ourselves we lived without a microwave for most of our lives, but it’s a big part of our routine to make a big recipe and then warm it up in little portions all week. I guess that’s what the stovetop is for.

    Nevertheless, compared to death, severe illness, and financial collapse, it doesn’t seem very important.

  105. 105.

    germy

    @sdhays:  Unlikely.

     

    .

    EDIT:  But then again, I remember when one of the senators who tried to replace her as leader later apologized and admitted he was wrong.  I don’t remember his name.

  110. 110.

    Amir Khalid

    @WereBear:

    The National Security Council’s text, says no drive-through bazaars, no order-and-pickup. Catering opportunities will be very few, since no one will be hosting Iftar or Eid gatherings. And since you can’t have the traditional open house this year, no one will be ordering Eid goodies. Eid under lockdown is really going to suck.

    I agree with your cats, and so do all my people: TREATS are absolutely essential.

  111. 111.

    satby

    @zhena gogolia: unless you’re a ha8r of online shopping you can replace it reasonably quickly. Best Buy and Amazon both have delivery of purchases made online, or Best Buy has curbside pick up. Assume WalMart, Target, etc do too.

  112. 112.

    MattF

    @zhena gogolia: Well, let’s see… the handle on my microwave door is held on with tape, one of the buttons on the front of my dishwasher fell off and is sitting on the kitchen counter, my clothes dryer has to be reset by unplugging it for a half hour to avoid that error code, my refrigerator is the last of the unreplaced appliances and is over 30 years old…

  113. 113.

    satby

    @Leto: but JFC they make it so hard to not hate them

    One of my RWNJ FB trolls immediately popped up when I shared the article about testing on the Navy ship Roosevelt showing 60% of the positives were asymptomatic at time of the positive results. His take? “Shows that it’s probably not as serious as the “experts” claim”.

    My god, how much I hate them is immeasurable.

  115. 115.

    Jinchi

    @germy: “We don’t shut the country down for that,” said Dr. Phil

    It’s defies belief that a man with a Ph.D. in psychology doesn’t understand that if we hadn’t shut down the country we’d be looking at several million deaths this year instead of “only” 30,000 confirmed dead in the last month.

    But then again he apparently thinks that over 350,000 people drown in swimming pools every year (it’s 3,500), so maybe numbers aren’t his thing.

  116. 116.

    Nora

    @Immanentize: My husband and I used to live on Winter Hill in Somerville, and didn’t know about Patriot’s Day.  The first year we heard a horse riding past our building, we were totally confused, but after that, we loved it.

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: My last trip to the supermarket was the day before Easter, and one thing I noticed (aside from people generally taking this a little more seriously than two weeks earlier) was the complete lack of seasonal Easter paraphernalia: no egg-dying kits, baskets, special Easter candy, and so forth. Not sure if they were consciously trying to discourage family Easter gatherings or if they just didn’t have the supply chain working.

  119. 119.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: I wasn’t aware of that parish-naming tradition in Chicago until my older son started high school at St. Ignatius and the freshman parents introduced themselves by which parish they hailed from. I remember St. Sabina coming up a number of times.

  121. 121.

    Gin & Tonic

    @germy: A dilemma. Should I listen to the country’s foremost expert on infectious diseases, who has been doing that work for four decades or so, or some TV personality who, it turns out, is not actually licensed for any clinical practice anywhere?

  122. 122.

    zhena gogolia

    @MattF:

    I am living in fear of my refrigerator going . . . .

     

    @satby: Amazon won’t ship until mid-May. There’s a hardware store down the street and it’s possible they’d put one on the curb for us or even deliver, but we decided not to mess with it right now. Zoom teaching/meetings are taking all the life energy out of us.

  123. 123.

    Jinchi

    @Punchy: Few non-MAGAs are going to willingly sit next to complete strangers

    MAGA’s aren’t really known for willingly sitting next to strangers either, but I guess now we’ll find out how strong their dedication to Chick-fil-A truly is.

  124. 124.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    that even trump could understand.

    I realize you’re probably experiencing sleep deprivation, but I didn’t think it would cause hallucinations.

  126. 126.

    Gin & Tonic

    @eric: Since there won’t be a vaccine for quite some time, I’ll assume your restaurant has gone out of business and you’ve sold the equipment and fixtures.

  128. 128.

    MattF

    @satby: My rule is that if something actually stops working, it gets replaced ASAP, with no regrets. And I did a round of bathroom renovation about ten years ago. But it’s irksome that the new -> old -> broken -> new cycle is clearly endless.

  129. 129.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    A dilemma. Should I listen to the country’s foremost expert on infectious diseases, who has been doing that work for four decades or so, or some TV personality who, it turns out, is not actually licensed for any clinical practice anywhere?

    Wow. That IS a tough one. I guess the reply/response depends on whether the responder is a MAGAt, or a sentient human being.

  131. 131.

    satby

    @MattF: But it’s irksome that the new -> old -> broken -> new cycle is clearly endless.

    Well, I was mostly just teasing because I probably wouldn’t replace most of those either. Exception being a 30 year old refrigerator, because energy efficiency is so much better now. But on the general lack of longevity of almost everything manufactured now, I agree with you.

  132. 132.

    germy

    The only reason people went from “We have to mitigate all damages from covid” to “We have to open up Anerica” is that white folks figured out they could still work from home while black and brown bodies will be sacrificed for their comfort.

    — ??Black??Aziz??aNANsi?? (@Freeyourmindkid) April 16, 2020

    Certainly seems like there were no open up protests till Michigan and N.Y. gave racial breakdowns on covid deaths. Then they whipped out there confederate flags and hit the streets….

    — Mark in BK (@cl1mb1ng) April 16, 2020

  133. 133.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MattF: Oh yeah, by the time the last thing that could possibly break has been fixed the first thing that could possibly break breaks again. It’s the inescapable law of home ownership.

  136. 136.

    MattF

    @satby: As a matter of fact, I replaced my heat pump a couple of years ago, and it was plainly the tentpole in my energy use. I could have had it fixed— ‘It’s the capacitor’ yadda yadda, but ongoing repairs to the condo building roof made it convenient at that time.

  137. 137.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Immanentize: I suppose it depends on the congregation and what they feel they get from church. A Quaker meeting that is local to us and draws maybe 20 people most Sundays, is drawing a regular crowd of 130+  from all around the world on their Zoom services.

    Another small church we like isn’t getting numbers like that, but they’re getting numbers at least as large as they normally get on Sunday, plus some shut-ins who haven’t been in church in years.

  139. 139.

    Kattails

    @satby: Ugh, how frustratingly distressing for you, on top of everything. I really hope it shows up for you.  Under these conditions people need the money; FFS if they monitored the corporations’ millions half as well as they do our few pence, the country would be in much better shape.

    I know I tried to get my status on the IRS website and after some jumping around, the information was that it would come through my SS direct deposit information. But when?

    @Immanentize: I’m northwest of you near the CT. River Valley, been a chilly few days and snow/rain mix predicted here overnight. Just windy enough and just enough clouds that I have to keep the wood stove going, and I haven’t dared put anything in the ground yet. I do have heavy white row cover and might make use of the leftover campaign sign metal hoops to make a covered bed.

  140. 140.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @MattF: Yep, that’s the Quakers. You’re supposed to speak only when you feel the spirit moving you. But they do plenty of chatting in the social time afterward.

  141. 141.

    senyordave

    @germy: After Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, explained the White House’s new guidelines for states to slowly reopen their economies in a three-phase process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham sought another opinion later in the show.

    I’m trying to think of a good reason why Fauci would ever go on Ingraham’s show.  She is bad, even for Fox.  His people should think long and hard about ever going on Fox, with the possible exception of doing an interview with Chris Wallace.  Ingraham might be the nastiest piece of work out there these days.  Seems a lot like Kellyanne Conway, lies so often its hard to believe its an act, and comes off like an evil witch.

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jonathan Allen @jonallendc
    The Rolling Stones are joining the One World concert tomorrow. Has anyone figured out whether tiny droplets of Keith Richards’ blood can be mass-distributed to protect everyone from coronavirus and all other potential toxins?

    Is it responsible to speculate that Keith Richards may be the source of the Omni-Vaccine? It is irresponsible not to…

  143. 143.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @senyordave:

    I imagine Fauci talks to Trump about the same way he talked to Ingraham. He’s probably hoping to communicate with at least a few Fox viewers.

    I’m looking at reports of yesterday’s shut-down protests. I don’t get the political thinking behind them. Suppose the shutdowns are ended prematurely. The virus will flare back up and people will get sick, and some of them will die. Reality will be heard. And the November election is far enough away that there’s time for that to happen. The current news cycle is irrelevant.

  144. 144.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I figure he figures that the sort of people who went to those protests, and the ones who would have gone if there had been one closer to the house, are prime spreaders. You can imagine these guys making a point of going to costco without a mask, intentionally getting too close to anyone who looks at them cross-eyed, carrying a gun if they live in an open carry state, just trying to provoke some kind of confrontation …

  146. 146.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I tend to prefer the Greek and Arabic versions of “Christ is Risen” – they tend to be more active, much livelier. That said, there is one RUssian version that is triumphalist enough for my weird taste in ceremonial music (that I have despite my now militant atheism).

  147. 147.

    MattF

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I suspect the goal is to damage the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Semi-Trumpie WaPo columnist Henry Olsen went after Whitmer, saying the protests damaged her reputation and took her out of the Veepstakes. But, y’know, Democrats taking direction from a WH stooge probably isn’t such a great idea.

  148. 148.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m looking at reports of yesterday’s shut-down protests. I don’t get the political thinking behind them.

     
    I was thinking killing one’s own voters reeks of desperation.

    Then again, they are Republicans.

  149. 149.

    germy

    @senyordave:

    I’m trying to think of a good reason why Fauci would ever go on Ingraham’s show.

    My guess is he wants to reach as many people as possible, including her audience: the people who are most likely to disobey distancing orders.

  153. 153.

    sdhays

    @MattF: I’ve been wondering if no matter how well a governor handles this crisis, the crisis itself has made Biden picking a governor less likely – simply because they are needed day to day in their state focusing on managing the crisis.

  154. 154.

    germy

    Yesterday at 6am I put on a mask and visited my local supermarket.  6am-7am is “Boomer Hour.”

    There were no lines this time (two weeks ago there was a long line of seniors) and the place wasn’t crowded.  The aisles are now ONE WAY, with arrows on the floor indicating which way to walk (an advantage to the store, as I am now compelled to walk every aisle rather than dart around selectively the way I used to).

    Of course, I see older white men walking the wrong way.  Either they don’t know how to follow directions, or don’t care.

    So I’m pushing my cart in one aisle in the correct direction, and an old dude with just a basket is about to walk into the same aisle, but from the wrong direction.  He sees me and mutters “Fuck!” because I guess I was in his way.

    These are the same people who were the shitty students with bad attitudes in high school.  Except now they’re in their sixties, and they’re as assholish as ever.

  155. 155.

    Nicole

    @Matt McIrvin:

    My last trip to the supermarket was the day before Easter, and one thing I noticed (aside from people generally taking this a little more seriously than two weeks earlier) was the complete lack of seasonal Easter paraphernalia: no egg-dying kits, baskets, special Easter candy, and so forth.

    Huh.  Rite Aid, where we go for prescriptions, had stuff all month leading up to Easter and still some stuff on clearance- although not a lot of malted milk ball eggs- those must have gone fast as soon as the 50% off sign went up. I nabbed the last two bags yesterday and may have fist pumped the air when I did.

    I did notice some vitamin supplements, but not all of them, were getting scarce. I went in for calcium, and it took awhile to find any.

  157. 157.

    laura

    Van Buren – celebrate your anniversary while you’ve got a spouse. If not for your sake, do it for your spouse. No guarantees on future years my friend. Are you still glad you got married? If so, say so from your heart – that’s the gift right there.

    RIP Brian Dennehy, a good actor and former wall street trader who worked with Martha Stewart.

  158. 158.

    Patricia Kayden

    “When I said ‘smother your children in their sleep and their sell their organs for money to buy crack cocaine,’ I meant ‘puppies are cute.’ I apologize for the misunderstanding. I blame the Oxford comma.” t.co/wyslKjANfX— TBogg (@tbogg) April 17, 2020

  159. 159.

    Seanly

    Hey, if we can do remote voting for the House & Senate then we can junk the antiquated size of the House and get the number of voters per representative down to around 150k.

  162. 162.

    Leto

    @germy:

     

    The aisles are now ONE WAY

    Our local supermarket implemented that. Most people were following it with no issue. For military members this is a nice reminder that all of our commissaries have always been like this, so it’s good to see the civilian world cutting down on some of the chaos :P

  163. 163.

    sdhays

    @Seanly: And eliminate the filibuster. And welcome DC and any other “territory” that wants to as a state. And put some more people on the Supreme Court to help with their backlog.

  165. 165.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    On behalf of all shitty students with bad attitudes from high school, not all of us turned into complete monsters….

  166. 166.

    sdhays

    @germy: They went on Fox “News” and told the audience what the host wanted them to tell them. They should be DONE outside of the reichwing media.

  167. 167.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think the political thinking is that the shutdowns won’t end, but the right can then make political hay out of being oppressed and win elections with it. The object isn’t to succeed in getting them lifted, it’s to play the victim.

  169. 169.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: At Market Basket they’ve got one-way aisles, and a line to get in with marks on the sidewalk every six feet, with staffers wiping down carts with disinfectant wipes and handing them to people on the way in. There are similar marks (and plastic sneeze guards, though they’re kind of small) in the checkout lines, and the traffic flow is greatly improved by controlling access at the entrance.

    When I went there, most of the staffers weren’t covering their faces but I’d say more than half of the shoppers were. People were generally obeying the one-way marks, BUT there was also a lot of pushing past dawdlers within the six-foot radius.

  170. 170.

    Fair Economist

    @OzarkHillbilly: I am normally something of an insomniac and get an average of about 6 hours sleep a night (for years it was much worse than that but it has improved over the last decade). But last night I crashed at 7 – just suddenly felt so tired I couldn’t even fold the laundry on my bed and slept under it. I slept until 4, woke up for an hour or so without getting out of bed, and then slept again until 7:30. I still feel really draggy. All very unusual for me.

  172. 172.

    JMG

    I certainly hope one-way aisles in supermarkets will be one of the permanent changes due to the virus. Makes shopping much easier and I forget much less stuff.

  173. 173.

    Fair Economist

    @Amir Khalid: Biden seems like a good executive. He seems to understand that he’s not actually supposed to do it himself, but find other people who can, and he seems to have good judgement on hires. Also, getting every Presidential contender solidly behind him, even Sanders, Gabbard, and assorted Blue Dogs, speaks highly of his interpersonal skills.

  174. 174.

    Elizabelle

    @Fair Economist:   Oh oh.  Hope you are feeling better soon.  Sounds like you are trying to fight something off.

    @Matt McIrvin:  I would guess the only people listening to the grievance monsters would be voting for Republicans or gliberatarians anyway.

    The governors are doing a world of good with their press conferences.  I think the non-rabid can tell the difference.

    The rabid were always going to vote for selfishness and cruelty.  If they vote at all.  There are more of us.

  175. 175.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro: Amazing isn’t it; turns out that social safety net built up across the freaking industrial world wasn’t done as some kind of hobby but to address real problems or otherwise modern society isn’t possible.

  177. 177.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin: It feels more like they don’t want some chunk of the collation they cobbled together bailing for the latest sexy idea so set the White Victimization to 12 no matter how absurd it is just to keep the marks to upset to think.

  178. 178.

    zhena gogolia

    Is Martin still around? I haven’t seen him lately, but I’ve been going to bed (or at least logging off) early.

  179. 179.

    Fair Economist

    @zhena gogolia:

    But normally you don’t just go out and replace appliances because they’re old — you just wait for them to break and then replace them!

    Could you please speak with my husband? He’s replaced our dishwasher, microwave, and washer/dryer, basically all because they’re “getting old”. I’ve managed to save the range/stove, but only because it’s an odd size and hard to replace.

    In the case of the dishwasher and washer, there’s also the issue that he insists on running thing on the quick-wash cycle and then complains that they don’t clean properly…

  183. 183.

    Fair Economist

    @zhena gogolia: Yes, we were all shocked. But she did do it. I don’t understand why she was such a quack during her campaign and ended up doing the right thing. Had she been reasonable through the campaign and not acted like a Russian/Syrian asset she’d have been a shoo-in to keep the House seat she’s ended up having to resign from at the end of the year.

  184. 184.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I’ll just leave this here in memory of my father:

    For the Anniversary of My Death

    By W. S. Merwin

    Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
    When the last fires will wave to me
    And the silence will set out
    Tireless traveler
    Like the beam of a lightless star

    Then I will no longer
    Find myself in life as in a strange garment
    Surprised at the earth
    And the love of one woman
    And the shamelessness of men
    As today writing after three days of rain
    Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
    And bowing not knowing to what

    RIP Dad, too many years ago. It’s cold comfort, but he never knew – probably never could have imagined – a world where an orange shitgibbon squatted in the Oval Office. And at least the impending loss of all the seasons of baseball, his grand passion, had no chance to break his heart.

  185. 185.

    germy

    Many people have been asking about mosquitoes and ticks. Can either give you coronavirus if they bite you?

    NewsChannel 13’s sister station WHEC asked health experts to weigh in.

    “That’s a very good question and it has a pretty clear answer and that’s no because the virus is a respiratory virus and really does not enter the bloodstream. As such, the insect should not be able, when it sucks the blood, to get it out of the bloodstream. So we do not consider that a concern,” said Dr. Anja Bottler, an infectious disease specialist at Rochester Regional Health.

  186. 186.

    laura

    @Uncle Cosmo: Thank you for the W.S. Merwin poem- I woke up thinking about him. He was, as usual in life, putting about his outdoor garden ‘shed’ moving pots of tiny trees and deciding which ones to plant and where. It was misty and the surrounding trees made for ghostly walls. Again, thank you and wishing you peace and comfort in remembering your dad. Mine, too, would have been crushed by the cancellation of baseball season. We’d talk on the phone before, sometimes during and after the game. I’m forever grateful and thrilled we had not one but 3 world series wins -and 2 young Giants fans -his beloved rascals who never knew the lean years.

  188. 188.

    Gvg

    @Matt McIrvin: they were in my grocery store, but no one seemed to be buying. I had some leftover unopened egg dying kits that I didn’t need and I put out on the curb with other “free” stuff as a result of stay at home finally getting to clean out projects. Nobody took them. They took coloring books and crayons and toys, but not those. It didn’t really feel like Easter to me. I sort of feel we will do it later.

  189. 189.

    sdhays

    @Fair Economist: I think I understand your husband. I don’t like having big expensive changes like buying a new appliance dropped on me at random. I’d rather be in control of when the appliance is replaced, and I’d rather not be forced to do without because we’re shopping and then waiting for the delivery schedule. We replaced our old washer and dryer (at different times) which came with the house, and both my wife and I don’t regret it one bit.

  190. 190.

    trollhattan

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    That’s lovely.

    IDK how my parents would have responded to the current debacle. Dad had little use for politics and mom was reflexively Republican, but more of the Eisenhower-Rockefeller school. Nixon made her leery and Reagan was, I think, the last straw. She could sniff out a fraud.

    While I dearly miss them I would not want to subject them to a nation and world intermittently on fire and run by resurgent nazis and klansmen.

  191. 191.

    trollhattan

    @germy: @Leto:

    What this nation clearly needs in this time of peril is a Third-Way initiative to gives grocery aisle flexibility. Fight the power!

  192. 192.

    Leto

    @trollhattan: I was hoping we’d find some centrist/Broderist to lead this initiative. Maybe they can suggest laying off store workers, finding new ways to stock, and more use of self checkout lines to fund this program…

  193. 193.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @mrmoshpotato: First time in London I wondered long & hard why anyone would beatify, let alone canonize, a part of the human body, and not even a terribly prominent part.

    Then I noticed that St. Pancras was short an “e”…

  194. 194.

    Ksmiami

    @debbie: I think it’s advantageous for seniors because people are moving at a similar pace… and because Seniors generally don’t need quite as much as families

  196. 196.

    MoCA Ace

    @germy:  Unlike coronavirus, none of the causes of death listed by Dr. Phil are contagious

    JFC… stay in your lane you fucking moran!

  200. 200.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trollhattan: All should be aware that most reproductions of that poem contain a typo – “then [rather than “the”] shamelessness of men”. /pedant

    Mom was religious in the “Christ Stopped At Eboli” sense – the old earth-mother religion of southern Italy (with multiple Madonnas on the wall for every crucifix, even counting the ones on the rosaries). Dad has his own Holy Trinity: FDR as the Father, JFK as the Son, and…guess who was the Holy Ghost. In over 60 years of voting I don’t think he ever once voted for a Rethuglican.

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