Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

A norm that restrains only one side really isn’t a norm – it’s a trap.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

No Justins, No Peace

Hot air and ill-informed banter

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Monday Morning Open Thread: Happy Patriots Day!

Monday Morning Open Thread: Happy Patriots Day!

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(Someone tell the Hamilfans — most of whom probably already know — there’s an LMManuel home performance starting at approximately the 10:35min mark.. )

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111Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    No President can promise to prevent future outbreaks.

    Baud! 2020!: No more outbreaks!*

    *Not to late, superdelegates!

  3. 3.

    debbie

    Guess that explains why there’s so little testing. It made Trump uncomfortable when he was tested.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    Before I fell off to sleep, I saw a tweet about a story that the drug cartels are having a difficult time during this pandemic.

    Gonna try and find the story. Was chuckling while reading the tweet

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Finally got to see my daughter yesterday (from a safe distance) after well over a month. We’re in contact via text throughout the day, but it turns out I need occasional visual evidence that she’s okay too. I feel so much better!

    A big storm is supposed to blow through my area pretty soon. The frogs have known for hours, long before the severe weather alerts started rattling my phone. They were singing about it all night.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The world’s top male tennis player, Novak Djokovic, has admitted that his opposition to vaccinations might prevent him from rejoining the tour.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yep, eyes don’t lie.

    I remember how leaves used to turn upside down, the air would turn green, and birds would fly low to the ground before storms. It scared the hell out of me, but I kind of miss it.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    Kay,

     

    if you are lurking….

     

    check in sometimes.

     

    I miss you.

    would love your insights about how COVID-19 is seen from rural Ohio.

     

    how you think Biden is doing…

     

    how the little munchkin? is doing

  15. 15.

    JAFD

    Good morning, jackals !

    Was listening to WQXR this morn.  Their morning DJ, Jeff Spurgeon (who frequently makes quips like this) introduced a piece by “Dora Pejacevic, another unsung woman composer…”

    And I’m wondering if you can say someone is an ‘unsung composer’ if all their works are instrumental… ;-)

    Stay healthy, happy, and hydrated !

  17. 17.

    JMG

    No Battle Green re-enactment in Lexington this year for obvious reasons. But I did drive past the Green on my way to curbside pickup at my wine store the other day and it is all decorated in American flags, which looked very nice.

    True confession: Lived in Lexington 30 years and have never seen the re-enactment. It starts at 5:30 a.m.! I have seen the dress rehearsal on Sunday afternoon a couple times.

  20. 20.

    JAFD

    Note to moderaters:  Have switched online computer, week before last.  Just noticed that am posting with obsolete eddress, won’t reach me, use the mail of the Google to get to me.

    Sorry if caused you trouble, thanks for your labors for us Balloon Juicers.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah:  None of us are in a vulnerable group, but our daughter is an adult (age 21) with her own place about an hour or so from where we live. We all think staying in our respective domiciles as much as possible is the responsible thing to do, but the kids live in an urban area and wanted to get out for a nature fix. They came up and used our canoes, and I got to cook for everyone. It was great!

  27. 27.

    Tony Jay

    Moved from the thread downstairs because why not?

    Over in the Land of Union Jack Themed Make-Believe it looks like Bozo Johnson’s brush with mortality was considerably worse than the Conservative Party PR flacks who constitute the bulk of the British Media have been letting on. I say this partly because of the recent twinklings of something approaching entry-level journalism among parts of our 4th Estate, signalling that this Government’s bottomless capacity for bullshit has begun to lose its luster, but mostly because of the recent article in The Times (no linkee to Murdoch’s Empire) informing the country’s slightly higher-end Tory voters (by which, of course, I mean to imply the editorial and management ranks of every other national newspaper) that the Funny Fat Man is really a lazy, self-centered prick responsible for leading the country into this corpse-filled ditch by ignoring the warning signs back in January, mugging off going to COBRA meetings (the top national emergency council) in favour of fund-raisers and holidays, and a load of other failures of character and imagination that have been common knowledge outside the right-wing media bubble, but will be news to those who have been fed a relentless diet of “Isn’t he doing well? Gawd Bless that big, brave boy!” stories since the fan started receiving inbound solids.

    In other words, Murdoch’s people seem to think that Flobalob is either quite a few weeks away from slipping back into the cosplay PM suit or he’s too physically fucked to ever remount the Throne of Poor People’s Bones, either way, they’re throwing him under the bus and revving up the engines for yet another Tory Leadership contest. I can’t see The Times doing this if there were any chance that Johnson will recover, it’s simply not how Tories operate. The utterly slimy Michael Gove, Murdoch’s bought and paid for cuckoo in the Tory nest, was out there backstabbing his ‘good friend Boris’ on the morning Politics Shows with variations on “You might think these facts reflect badly on the Prime Minister, but I’m sure most of them have perfectly credible explications… that Boris will be happy to give you just as soon as he returns from his extended convalescence.“, so that’s one hat in the ring. Gove has been careful to keep his purse-cheeked face away from the Daily Briefing podium as things have got worse, leaving all the shit to stick to less sinuous placemen like Foreign Secretary Dominic (head like a peanut, brain like a vacuum chamber) Raab and Health Secretary Matt (even he wants to slap his face) Hancock. The Chancellor, Rishi (small print, big profits) Sunak, had a brief moment of media-led stardust early on by virtue of being the guy who got to (belatedly, under protest) tell the nation everyone’s wage bill would be going on the national credit card , but the fact that all of his financial schemes turn out to be hollow PR stunts with little to no organisational body to them (you can take the boy out of Goldman Sachs, etc) has started to muddy up that hastily constructed reputation for competence. He’s also been fingered as joining Gove in pushing for the Lockdown to end so the pandemic can sweep away the nation’s eugenic deadwood quicker, so it looks like Gove is also positioning himself as the leader of the pro-Trumpist ‘Get Britain Back To Work” campaign, but as usual he’s not sticking his neck out without dragging someone else right along with him as cover.

    Meanwhile, people are dying and the NHS can’t cope, but who cares about that when there’s power-politics to be played?

    These fucking people.

  29. 29.

    zhena gogolia

    Someone on here alerted me to the fact that Foyle’s War is on Amazon Prime until 4/30. We re-watched the very first episode last night (to be precise, the first half of it, second half tonight). What a fantastic series that was.

  35. 35.

    Spanky

    @Baud: I’m pretty sure we had them, if you consider second grade as its own population. Measles, mumps, chickenpox all swept through. I’m probably forgetting some.

    We’ll probably get to the point where it mutates into several strains and a vaccine follows several months behind trying to play whack-a-mole with each one. IOW, exactly like the flu vaccine is now.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @Tony Jay: Jeez, what a mess. The coverage of the carnage and Trump’s flailing has consumed most of the news pixels on this side of the pond, but the few stories I’ve seen on BoJo were very upbeat.

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: Good Morning. VA. Governor Ralph Northam  was on State of the Union yesterday and in his calm way made the the point that we need testing, not protesting. This morning a local right wing talk host was talking up a protest in Richmond. The usual tea party cranks will show up. Polling shows a substantial majority of Virginians back the current stay at home regimen, and it is in fact less restrictive than others regarding allowable work and travel to and from work. But the tea party cranks are self marginalizing and can only control a hollowed out state Republican party. I worry more about guys in barns making bombs, and that is one reason I will have my fingers crossed November 3. I will be interested though in whether protesters block traffic, and whether the State Police make arrests and tow vehicles. The demonstration last week in Michigan certainly gave them a heads up. I don’t expect violence, though. The tea party crybabies only talk tough, whereas Virginia state troopers are generally respected and somewhat feared.

  45. 45.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    I’m a very shallow person who just wants to be able to say “Told you so!” when Flobalob gets flushed away. 8-)

  46. 46.

    Tony Jay

    @Betty Cracker:

    They would be. Access journalism tends to squeeze out a product indistinguishable from Royal proclamations. “The King is in Good Health! All Hail the New King!”

    I could be wrong, but the story on Johnson’s illness has changed so many times that they’re just not trustworthy. And while Flobalob is camera-dodging behind the walls of Chequers there are unmistakable signs that even junior ministers are going with “Boris was totally in charge of this from Day One” finger pointing faux-praise in their interactions with the Press.

    That says speed-bump on the bus-route to me.

  48. 48.

    satby

    @zhena gogolia: that was me! It’s a fantastic series and Michael Kitchen is a terrific actor. And though it’s set during WWII, the frustration and deprivation really resonates with today in some ways. The majority of people carrying on stoically while a few venial bad folks take advantage.

  49. 49.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: other than being older and mildly asthmatic, I’m not really in a vulnerable group, but my adult kids and I haven’t really seen each other either. Not in the same household – keep apart is the rule. And apparently NONE of my neighbors grasp that.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @Tony Jay: Over here I sense a certain edging away from Trump as well. Republican politicians are taking potshots at Democrats and quibbling over stay-at-home orders, but I have not seen any Republican congressman or senator make a full-throated endorsement or even defense of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and I don’t think I will. The only people doing so are talk show hosts and a few nutty governors and state reps.

  51. 51.

    WereBear

    @Tony Jay:  Thanks! I wondered…

    I have seen articles from Britain from doctors convinced the “hidden co-factors” in COVID-19 complications simplify down to Metabolic Syndrome. Rampant in both the UK and the US from relentless pushing of processed foods, food deserts, and the resultant malnutrition. I find it a compelling argument.

    See, I wondered if Boris was going to suffer after-effects I’ve been reading about. Seems like he did get some of that.

  52. 52.

    WereBear

    @Geminid:  I have not seen any Republican congressman or senator make a full-throated endorsement or even defense of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and I don’t think I will

     
    That, itself, speaks volumes.

  53. 53.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: Ohio looks a bit scary right now–they seemed to have actually managed to control infection at a plateau much lower than, say, here, but over the past week their new-case numbers have been shooting up at what looks like a completely uncontrolled rate. Don’t know what happened.

  54. 54.

    Sloane Ranger

    I’ve said this before. Boris is very bright, not as bright as he thinks he is but still above average intelligence BUT he is fundamentally lazy and relies on a a combination of bluster, deflection, thinking on his feet and a somewhat sleazy charm to get by. Reading briefing papers, attending meetings is just too much hard work. He sees himself as the sort of PM we used to have in the late 18th, early 19th century who could deal with the affairs of State and still find plenty of time for long weekend House parties and shoots.

    Having said that he does have appeal to a certain sub set of middle aged and elderly ladies as a mop haired scamp and to some working class men as a guy who likes a drink and a bit of fun. There is no other senior Tory who has this appeal. They all come over as fundamentally unlikeable, even by their own mothers. They drop Boris and they lose those Labour seats they gained in the last election. They might have lost some of them anyway now that there is a new Labour leader but their loss is guaranteed if the Tories go into the next election without Boris.

    Although the country will suffer in the meantime, this is good news for us, bad news for the Tories. The men in grey suits know this and will not drop Boris unless he really cannot carry on.

    Another theory going the rounds is that he is deliberately keeping a low profile, letting his Ministers take the flack for the Government’s incompetence and will emerge to take the credit if things improve. It has been reported that he met with Raab at Chequers this weekend, for what’s that worth.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    We broke the rules yesterday, and my daughter and SIL came for a visit. They’ve been isolated in their condo about an hour away for weeks now, and we’ve been isolated in our home, so this was a low-risk visit, I think. Went for a bike ride, as it was a beautiful, if cool, early spring day, did a bunch of yard work, cleaned the gutters, and had a wonderful dinner of fresh local oysters and grilled swordfish. Couldn’t have been better.

  58. 58.

    zhena gogolia

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I was too lazy to copy my message and then get the text box so I could italicize it. Yesterday I failed to copy my message first and lost the whole thing.

  59. 59.

    donnah

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, Ohio has done so well and DeWine did a great job with early restrictions. But the numbers are growing and it’s discouraging.

    And today’s newspaper headline is terrifying:

    “Ohio Firearm Sales See Massive Surge”

    Because nothing helps get through a pandemic like a heavily armed, frustrated public.

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    @satby:

    Thank you for alerting me!

    I was hoping that it would be included in Britbox, but it looks as if I’ll have to subscribe to yet another thing, Acorn, if we can’t manage to binge the whole thing before it disappears.

  61. 61.

    PST

    Yesterday my wife and I sat shiva virtually using Zoom. I mention it because of how moving and natural it seemed. One difference we noticed between this the usual in-person visitation (in any tradition) was that people did not gather in quiet little groups. Everyone spoke to everyone, which was nice. I can imagine this being cold and not very comforting under circumstances of a tragic, early death with family shocked and grieving. However, in the case of the peaceful and not unexpected passing of a much loved person after a long life well lived, the mood was one of sharing fond memories, and under those circumstances we thought Zoom worked. We all need to be sure to have some grandchildren with good technical skills, just in case.

  63. 63.

    Tony Jay

    @Geminid:

    Who was it who said the other day (Cole or Betty, I think) that Trump is utterly stumped by the C-19 pandemic because, while he can bullshit and lie and smear and finger-point to his wizened little heart’s content, the Virus simply does not give a monkey’s chuff and will just go on killing people and crippling the country until the necessary steps are taken. Full stop. Period. End of.

    C-19 is a fucking virus, not a political opponent or a stiffed investor. It doesn’t get bored, or distracted, or disheartened, or scared off by legal threats. It just spreads and spreads and spreads until it’s stopped.

    Even the grasping creeps who are happy to order shipping containers full of magical thinking on his behalf when the pay-off is tax-cuts for the rich and activist judges for the Right are unwilling to stick their cocks on the block when the only likely payoff is a potentially fatal illness or unavoidable blame for accelerating the spread of same.

    When Donny Doolittle figures – that – out….

  66. 66.

    Tony Jay

    @WereBear:

    Serves him right, as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to save my sympathy for the many, many people his essential lack of empathy has condemned to avoidable deaths.

  70. 70.

    satby

    @zhena gogolia: I switch between Acorn and Britbox depending on what I want to watch, because Prime makes it so easy to cancel and restart subscriptions to other channels. I’m up to series 6 on Foyle’s War on Acorn and the second Miss Fisher series as well. Waiting for the next Shetland to be released to go back to Britbox and drop Acorn again.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony Jay: I’m still not convinced Trump won’t come out ahead from this–people won’t love him, but he can try his best to make sure it kills or disenfranchises his political opposition. His best shot at securing reelection is currently to make sure the election is so disrupted that he physically can’t be voted out of office. And sowing chaos is something he’s actually good at.

    (And while his approval ratings are a little off peak, they’re still higher than they’ve been for his pre-crisis presidency.)

  73. 73.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Another theory going the rounds is that he is deliberately keeping a low profile, letting his Ministers take the flack for the Government’s incompetence and will emerge to take the credit if things improve. It has been reported that he met with Raab at Chequers this weekend, for what’s that worth.

    PM Johnson was on oxygen for over a week in an ICU so his condition obviously wasn’t one of the milder cases. He’s now reportedly recovering but being unable to do much for several weeks afterwards is not surprising.

    There have been a number of reports of other folks who had moderate to severe cases of COVID-19 and even though they survived they spent the next few weeks after being released from hospital doing very little and getting lots of bed rest. PM Johnson appears to be doing the same right now.

  74. 74.

    JMG

    @Matt McIrvin: Anything’s possible, but it’s important to remember that if the election was today, Trump would lose, and possibly very badly. Now think ahead. What good news for an incumbent is likely to take place between now and November 3? Or is it more likely there will be more bad news for the in party?

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @Tony Jay: I believe that Trump has a certain lizard-brain cunning that sensed that the virus threatened his political and personal future, but instead of facing and working the problem he tried to run a bluff. But the virus holds high cards and won’t fold.

  78. 78.

    danielx

    @Geminid:

    Well, there’s Matt Gaetz, but his lips are usually so firmly affixed to Trump’s fat ass anyway it’s hard to tell the difference.

  79. 79.

    Ohio Mom

    Matt McIrvin: There are two prisons in Ohio with large outbreaks, one in Marion County and one in Pickaway.

    The outbreaks include townspeople but I don’t know the breakout. I can’t imagine that either of these counties has the medial infrastructure needed to take care of everyone. They are both in the middle of nowhere.

    As far as I can tell, the rest of my state is doing well at bending the curve but is it flat enough to allow us to open up safely? I wish someone I trusted would tell me Yes or No.

  80. 80.

    PST

    @satby: Thank you, satby. I’m not sure my post mentioned that the death wasn’t in our family. We were, in effect, paying a call on the mourning family for an hour or so. I brought it up because we were surprised at how effective this was in serving the function of a wake, so much so that if we were to lose someone during isolation, God forbid, I would consider organizing the same kind of Zoom gathering.

  83. 83.

    satby

    @zhena gogolia: not really patience much as it is that I only watch maybe 2 to 2 1/2 hours of anything most days. So paying for multiple streams is a waste of $ for me. As it is I keep a Netflix account and haven’t watch that in at least two weeks. I started YouTubeTV to get TCM and the current Blacklist (pricey for only two things) so I only keep the three, which pretty much covers anything I might want to watch. And the jury is out on YouTubeTV.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ohio Mom:As far as I can tell, the rest of my state is doing well at bending the curve but is it flat enough to allow us to open up safely? I wish someone I trusted would tell me Yes or No.

    The metric I have read is when positive tests drop below 10% of tests administered. Supposedly that means you aren’t missing too many infectious people, which at 20% positive rate you more likely are. I am not convinced that in our current state of under testing, this holds up.

  85. 85.

    Tony Jay

    @MattF:

    I was unclear. What I meant was that, once he figures out that a serious chunk of the Republican Party’s elected officials aren’t going to nail themselves to burning crosses just so that he has something to illuminate his  path towards a crushing electoral defeat in November, he is going to go craaaazy with cornered rat viciousness.

    The Blob Emperor requires daily examples of shit-eating from his underlings in order to maintain his self-image. When there’s still stool left on the plate, Blobby ain’t getting his happy.

  86. 86.

    Tony Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He might want that, but the Virus doesn’t care. He’s doing his level best to carve “I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF THIS” into his butt-cheeks while insisting on prancing naked in front of the cameras.

    Let him.

  90. 90.

    Tony Jay

    @Geminid:

    Exactly. The Virus DOES NOT CARE.

    I’m rereading William Rosen’s ‘Justinian’s Flea‘ about the 6th century outbreak of Plague that blindsided Justinian’s masterplan to reconquer the Western Roman Empire. None of the staring players in that world-historical drama gave a shit about politics either, because they were tiny little bacteria just looking for something to eat and a place to make more little bacteria.

    Smarter than Trump, though.

  91. 91.

    geg6

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The problem with figuring out if we are below 10% is because, from what I’ve read, the test has an over 7% chance of being wrong (the US test, not the WHO test).  I’m not a scientist, but that seems high to me.

  92. 92.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

    What’s the Juicism? Fuckers will be fuckers.

    Just, keep hold of those receipts. November is when the accountants start their work.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    @Tony Jay: It seemed obvious to me that BoJo was very, very sick and going into the hospital for “tests” was a ruse.  And going to the ICU for “oxygen” was another ruse.  I fully expected him not to come out alive, and the reporting to be “it’s a horrible shock, nobody could have predicted…”.  Kudos to the NHS for doing their jobs in such trying circumstances and for saving his life.

    I’ll be surprised if he’s back out in public doing his job before June.

    Thanks for your reporting.  It’s infuriating that the UK and the USA (and so much of the world) is having to go through this, and so many are dying, when China was telling us what we needed to do and giving us some time to prepare…

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    Miss Bianca

    @L85NJGT: I happen to be reading a historical novel (published in 1937, so it’s on its way to becoming an actually historical historical novel!) called Rabble in Arms, which covers in harrowing, gruesome detail the smallpox infestation that crippled Benedict Arnold’s army up in Quebec. The protagonist and his brother survive because they’ve been inoculated.

  97. 97.

    Jinchi

    @donnah: “Ohio Firearm Sales See Massive Surge”

    This always puzzles me. Firearm sales are constantly seeing massive surges. When Obama won and was going to seize all the guns it made a little bit of sense. Less when he won a second time. Even less when Dems won the House and Pelosi became speaker in 2018. And completely pointless now. Guns aren’t perishable items. How many do you need to hold off the urban hordes? You’d think the average prepper would be pretty well stocked by now.

  98. 98.

    Tony Jay

    @Another Scott:

    When I was but a wee lad gobbling up history books like they were going to run out, one of the constantly reoccurring puzzles was how and why elites who had the examples of the past to look too kept on repeating the same mistakes. Worrying more about how on-trend their peers would find the colour of their boot-laces than the fact there were barbarian armies ten miles away and everyone below the rank of Marquis hated their guts.

    I don’t wonder that anymore. It’s because people born with too much money are at an evolutionary disadvantage. It makes them blind, deaf and very, very dumb. If they didn’t monopolise the decision making structures of our countries they’d be amusing to observe on TV, but since they do…

    This may or may not be snark. 8-)

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh, you know Kenneth Roberts’s work! Why does that not surprise me?

    I haven’t read Northwest Passage – I read Arundel years and years ago, and loved it. It’s taking me a lot longer to get through this one, for some reason.

  103. 103.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jinchi: Prepper propaganda revealed as utter BS, what a surprise. Apparently it was *never* about being prepared for an actual “end times” type of disaster – hence the whinging about having to stay locked down, which you’d think their huge goddamn sacks of beans and rice or whatever the hell they were stockpiling *would* have prepared them for. No, it’s always been about fantasizing about shooting the trespassers zombies Blah Urban Hordes that are allegedly coming to get their stuff.

  104. 104.

    Jinchi

    @OzarkHillbilly: 7 days is when the numbers began going up after the WI election fiasco.

    Where are you seeing that? Reported confirmed cases in Wisconsin peaked just before the vote (290 cases on 4/5). It’s been pretty flat, averaging around 150/day for the last week.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: I started with Northwest Passage.  Oddly enough, I was the fourth generation of my family to read the copy of the book that I originally read – it was my great-grandmother’s.

  106. 106.

    danielx

    Went to Lowes this weekend, one at which store management is clearly not following any guidelines about only permitting X number of people at a time in the store. I needed to replace a bulb socket for a three way lamp which provides most of the light in the family room, plus picking up another spray bottle to keep one sprayer of Lysol solution in the kitchen and one in the garage. I wore gloves plus one of our precious store of N95 masks – sister in law bought a hundred for five bucks each on Amazon so that another sister in law (a doc) would have them for work, since hospitals aren’t providing them to radiologists.

    Parking lot was packed, and I almost turned around and left, but – six mile drive to get there, etc. So I go in and maybe half the people in the store were wearing masks, if that many. Store employees had them. A lot of people were not observing any social distancing measures; I stopped to maintain distance between a mom and two kids, none of them wearing masks, and some jerk ran her cart (lowboy variety) into my ankles from behind. Fortunately for me (and her) I was wearing boots, but still…anyway, the thought that kept running through my head was “what the fuck is the matter with you people?”. Spousal unit wanted me to pick up mulch, but I took one look at the outdoor lawn and garden center and thought, nope, nuh-uh, ain’t happening. Line was fifteen deep, three feet apart max and not a fucking soul wearing a mask. If it was a question of picking up necessary food or medicine, well, yes, reluctantly, but not for garden stuff. I want to plant flowers and such as much as the next person but I’m not willing to risk dying for it, which a lot of people evidently are.

    But the woman bopping around with two little kids, maybe four and six? How big a fool does one have to be to put one’s children at risk?

  107. 107.

    Tony Jay

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s intensely readable. The passages on the actual history of the period are smartly informative and the passages about the development of the bacteria are downright terrifying.

    Frex – The chances of any bacteria randomly grabbing hold of just the right kind of passing dna or virus to enable a useful mutation are exponentially larger than the chances of those famous monkeys and their typewriters banging out the works of Shakespeare, it’s laughably unlikely.

    But there are so bloody many bacteria and and breed so fast that, in reality, the chances of any bacteria developing a useful mutation within a 24 period are basically 100%.

    We are outgunned.

  108. 108.

    MisterForkbeard

    For the love of god, DO NOT read the twitter replies on that Chad Prather thread. It made me want to go and slap a bunch of people. But seriously, it’s like that scene is Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when they get a list of everyone who’s been an asshole to them on internet forums, show up at their houses, and punch them because they’re smarmy douches.
    Which I can’t, because I’m actually obeying common sense restrictions. And because I’m not a psychopath.

  109. 109.

    MoxieM

    @JMG: Hello fellow former Lexingtonian!  I lived there as a callow Yoot (Bicentennial class–’76, you bet), and back as an adult since ailing mother, young child etc. This was before the stratospheric RE $, you understand.  I left for final in 2013. I don’t really miss the hyper competitive Lexington crazy, but I do miss living in the Bosstown area.

  110. 110.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah:

    By a remarkable coincidence, the governor of Florida doesn’t want to think about it either…

     

    I wonder about what happens after. We have to hold these folks accountable. We will not survive another round of this. Yet I cannot imagine this country having the appetite.

    For example: There is no way every journalist in America who spent three years playing the ENTIRE clown about presidential pivots are going to willingly face what they enabled.

  111. 111.

    debbie

    @PST:

    I know you’re long gone, but that sounds like the best shiva ever. The people at the ones I’ve attended end up either talking about food or about their own aches and pains.

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