(1) B.C.V. / A.C.V. Kim Stanley Robinson argues “The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations” in an article for The New Yorker.
…On a personal level, most of us have accepted that we live in a scientific age. If you feel sick, you go to a doctor, who is really a scientist; that scientist tests you, then sometimes tells you to take a poison so that you can heal—and you take the poison. It’s on a societal level that we’ve been lagging. Today, in theory, everyone knows everything. We know that our accidental alteration of the atmosphere is leading us into a mass-extinction event, and that we need to move fast to dodge it. But we don’t act on what we know. We don’t want to change our habits. This knowing-but-not-acting is part of the old structure of feeling.
Now comes this disease that can kill anyone on the planet. It’s invisible; it spreads because of the way we move and congregate. Instantly, we’ve changed. As a society, we’re watching the statistics, following the recommendations, listening to the scientists. Do we believe in science? Go outside and you’ll see the proof that we do everywhere you look. We’re learning to trust our science as a society. That’s another part of the new structure of feeling.
(2) SOMETIMES IT DOES TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST. Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me on NPR: “Who’s Bill This Time”
SAGAL: Yes. And what do you do there when you’re allowed out of your house?
TIBERI: I am an electrical test engineer for the spacecraft Orion, which is the world’s only deep space human exploration spacecraft.
JOEL KIM BOOSTER: Whoa.
SAGAL: No kidding. So, wait a minute. You’re helping to build the Orion, which is supposed to take us to Mars, right?
TIBERI: Yes, that is correct. So I work as a test engineer. I do software and electrical integration. And next year, we are launching for the moon.
(3) A VISIT WITH MANAGEMENT. “The Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation” – video of a 2019 event.
The Baker Institute Space Policy Program hosts a conversation with senior space policy fellow George W.S. Abbey and author Michael Cassutt, whose new biography “The Astronaut Maker” chronicles Abbey’s rise from Air Force pilot to NASA power broker.
(4) YOU WOULDN’T GUESS THIS. CinemaBlend writer Adam Holmes, in “John Belushi’s Last Day On Earth Was Apparently Spent On The Set Of Star Trek II”, quotes Star Trek historian Mark A. Altman saying that John Belushi’s last activity before dying of a drug overdose was visiting the set of Star Trek II, because he “wanted to perfect his Shatner impersonation” and spent time watching William Shatner at work.
(5) RESISTING THE TEMPTATION. Roger Wolfson has “Advice for a Science Fiction Writer During the Time of Covid” – and where else but at ScienceFiction.com?
…Also like many writers, I have several projects in active development. But all my projects require answering the same question.
“How much or how little Covid do I put into this project?”
This is particularly important in the realm of Science Fiction, which is at heart, social commentary. And some of the best Science Fiction tries to take current social issues and expand them into the future in order to comment on them most effectively.
For me, when it comes to my projects, I want to talk about this pandemic. I want to talk about the social implications. The governmental implications. Personal implications.
Especially since I had Covid myself. I have a lot to say.
The problem is, any project I write won’t be on air – – if I’m lucky – for another year, or more…..
(6) BREAKING IN AND REMAKING. “NK Jemisin: ‘It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you’re white'” – so the author told Guardian interviewer Alison Flood
…She wrote another, The Killing Moon, which got her an agent. Set in a world based on ancient Egypt, it had an almost exclusively black cast – and didn’t find her a publisher. “It was the mid 2000s, and at that time science fiction and fantasy publishers were not super interested in stories with black casts by black writers. They had done some stories with black casts by white writers, but they were not interested in those stories coming from people who actually were black.” Rejection letters would say things like, “we like this, but we’re not sure how to market it. We like this but we’re not sure who its audience would be”– the implication from publishers being “that fantasy readers don’t want to read about black people. Black people don’t want to read fantasy. So what do we do?”
Jemisin decided to rewrite The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, making nearly the entire cast white. “All of them were horrible people. They’d shank each other for, like, nothing. And I wrote this angry story about this lone brown girl going into this place full of mean white people,” she says. It went to auction, with three different publishers fighting over it. “And I’m like, this is what you want?” she says. “I was pretty bitter … I’d taken such care in [The Killing Moon] to include sympathetic white people, but that wasn’t what they wanted.” …
(7) MAY 8 DEADLINE IF YOU WANT IN. The UC San Diego Library is producing a new edition of Short Tales From the Mothership, time coming in a more futuristic/modern event format — via Zoom! The event is scheduled for May 19, 2020 from 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm.
In the 1970s, sci-fi magazine editor George Hay encouraged authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, the namesake of UC San Diego’s Clarke Center, to write short postcard stories. Taking inspiration from Hay, this annual sci-fi micro fiction event allows participants to submit short stories inspired by UC San Diego’s iconic Geisel Library building, designed by famed architect William Pereira.
You have a chance to participate. Submit a science fiction or fantasy story (250 words or less) to Exhibit and Events Coordinator Scott Paulson at [email protected] by May 8. Participants will be invited to read their works at our virtual event on Zoom on May 19. This virtual event is free and open to the public. Registration details are forthcoming.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.
- May 3, 1996 — Barb Wire premiered. Brad Wyman produced the film, and It was directed by David Hogan from a screenplay by Chuck Pfarrer and Ilene Chaiken. The story was by Ilene Chaiken based on Chris Warner’s Barb Wire comic series. It stars Pamela Anderson in the titular role with the additional cast of Temuera Morrison, Victoria Rowell, Xander Berkeley, Udo Kier and Steve Railsback. It received overwhelmingly negative reactions by critics and was a box office bomb. It holds a fourteen percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes among audience reviewers.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born May 3, 1896 — Dodie Smith. English children’s novelist and playwright, best remembered for The Hundred and One Dalmatians which of course became the animated film of the same name and thirty years later was remade by Disney as a live action film.(Saw the first a long time ago, never saw the latter.) Though The Starlight Barking, the sequel, was optioned, by Disney, neither sequel film (101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure and 102 Dalmatians) is based on it. Elizabeth Hand in her review column in F&SF praised it as one of the very best fantasies (“… Dodie Smith’s sophisticated canine society in The Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Starlight Barking…”) she read. (Died 1990.)
- Born May 3, 1928 — Jeanne Bal. In Trek’s “The Man Trap” episode, she played Nancy Crater, in reality a lethal shape-shifting alien. This was the episode that replaced “The Cage” which the Network didn’t like. She also had one-offs in Thriller and I-Spy. (Died 1996.)
- Born May 3, 1939 — Dennis O’Neil, 81. Writer and editor, mostly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics from the Sixties through the Nineties, and was the Group Editor for the Batman family of titles until his retirement which makes him there when Ed Brubaker’s amazing Gotham Central came out. He himself has written Wonder Woman and Green Arrow in both cases introducing some rather controversial storytelling ideas. He also did a rather brilliant DC Comics Shadow series with Michael Kaluta as the artist.
- Born May 3, 1951 — W. H. Pugmire. S. T. Joshi has described Pugmire as “perhaps the leading Lovecraftian author writing today.” Let the debate begin. I don’t have a dog in this fight as I’ve never even heard of him. I will note that he shows up in most of the digital Cthulhu anthologies from the usual suspects and of course he’s in all of the Joshi Cthulhu anthologies that I looked at. (Died 2019.)
- Born May 3, 1962 — Stephan Martinière, 58. French artist who was the winner of the Best Professional Artist Hugo at Devention 3. He’s done both genre covers such as Ken MacLeod‘s Newton’s Wake: A Space Opera, and conceptual work for such films as The Fifth Element, Red Planet, and, errr, Battlefield Earth.
- Born May 3, 1969 — Daryl Mallett, 51. By now you know that I’ve a deep fascination with the non-fiction documentation of our community. Mallett is the author of a number of works doing just that including several I’d love to see including Reginald’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards: A Comprehensive Guide to the Awards and Their Winners written with Robert Reginald. He’s also written some short fiction including one story with Forrest J. Ackerman that bears the charming title of “A Typical Terran’s Thought When Spoken to by an Alien from the Planet Quarn in Its Native Language“. He’s even been an actor, appearing in several Next Gen episodes (“Encounter at Farpoint” and “Hide and Q”) and The Undiscovered Country as well, all uncredited. He also appeared in Doctor Who and The Legends Of Time, a fan film which you can see here.
- Born May 3, 1982 — Rebecca Hall, 38. Lots of genre work — her first role was as Sarah Borden in The Prestige followed by being Emily Wotton in Dorian Gray and then as Florence Cathcart in The Awakening which in turn led to her being Maya Hansen in Iron Man 3. Next up? Mary in Roald Dahl’s The BFG. Is she done yet? No as next up is the English dub of the voice of Mother of Mirai no Mirai. (She might’ve wanted to have stopped there as her most recent role was Dr. Grace Hart in Holmes & Watson which won an appalling four Golden Raspberries!)
- Born May 3, 1985 — Becky Chambers, 35. Her Wayfarers series won the Best Series Hugo at Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon. A Closed and Common Orbit was a finalist at WorldCon 75 for Best Novel but lost out to another exemplary novel, N. K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate. Record of a Spaceborn Few would be on the ballot at Dublin 2019 but lost out to yet another exemplary novel, Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars. (A digression: The Wayfarers are the best series I’ve listened to in a long time.) “To Be Taught, if Fortunate” is a finalist this year at ConZealand in the Best Novella category and I’ve got in my short list to be listened to.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- What might other planets be like? Here’s Garfield’s idea.
- Free Range shows what happens when someone opens the wrong door.
(11) TIME TO REFILL YOUR LID. Alasdair Stuart’s “The Full Lid 1st May 2020” takes a look at newly announced Doctor Who transmedia story “Time Lord Victorious” and what it tells about the show and its relationship with fans and the world it exists in.
Also, this week, Stuart looks at Lorcan Finnegan’s chilling suburban horror Vivarium and Jules Scheeles’ wonderful comics work. Interstitials are some of the best bits of week one of DC Comics’ daily digital offerings.
The Full Lid publishes weekly at 5 p.m. GMT on Fridays. Signup is free and the last six months are archived here.
Earlier this week, Time Lord Victorious was announced. It’s Doctor Who‘s first (as far as I can tell) trans-media project, telling one story from multiple perspectives across audio drama, books, comics, escape rooms (!!) and collectibles. It’s Crisis on infinite Gallifreys, it’s X-Men vs UNIT, it’s a crossover. A big ‘we fill the stage with goldfish and angst!’ crossover that will tell a massive flotilla of new stories forming one unified narrative. Oh and it features three of the Doctor’s best loved faces.
So of course a lot of people have decided this is a bad thing.
Let’s talk about the crossover, about why some folks feel that way, and why I don’t.
(12) SUPERMARIONATION REVIVED. Two episodes so far. Be sure to watch the “Making Of” at the end of the first episode – begins at 10:35.
‘Nebula-75’ is a new puppet lockdown drama made entirely during confinement in 2020 using only existing puppets and materials. Filmed in Supermarionation, it follows in the tradition of ‘Thunderbirds’, ‘Stingray’ and ‘Fireball-XL5’ while at the same time also being filmed in SuperIsolation and Lo-Budget! ‘Nebula-75’ charts the exploits of Commander Ray Neptune and the crew of the spaceship NEBULA-75 as they make their way across the stars, encountering strange worlds and forms of life hitherto unknown by mankind. It has been created and produced by a small group of filmmakers during the British lockdown on 2020. Although team members from around the world contributed remotely to pre and post production, the entirety of the filming for NEBULA-75 was undertaken by a crew of three who happened to already live together in a small flat in London. Their living room was transformed into a makeshift movie studio – with bookshelves, cardboard boxes and other household objects becoming the interior of the show’s hero spacecraft. This flat was also fortunately home to many of the puppets, props, and costumes that have been accumulated over the course of different productions.
(13) NOT MORE SPARKLY VAMPIRES! J-14 tries to interpret the cryptic clues — “OMG: Author Stephenie Meyer Drops Major Hint She’s Releasing New ‘Twilight’ Book”.
Get ready, people, because it looks like Bella Swan and Edward Cullen’s story may not be over just yet! Yep, that’s right. Almost 15 years after the first Twilight came out, the author of the book series, Stephenie Meyer, just dropped a major hint that she’s got a new book in the works, and fans are seriously freaking out over it!
Get this, you guys — Stephenie has upgraded her website with a very mysterious countdown that has everyone convinced she’s dropping another part of the series.
…The countdown is set to stop at midnight on May 4, 2020.
For those who forgot, back in 2008, rumors spread that the author was working on a new Twilight book, called Midnight Sun, which was going to be the same story but told from Edward’s point of view instead. The first twelve chapters were seemingly leaked online at the time, which in the end, caused Stephenie to shut down the book….
(14)NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Stanley Johnson Pushes For New Release of His 40-Year-Old Virus Novel” in The Guardian, Mark Brown says the British prime minister Boris Johnson’s father, technothriller author Stanley Johnson, is trying to get British publishers to reissue his 1982 novel The Marburg Virus, saying it’s topical and that copies of the paperback are currently selling for 57 pounds on Amazon.
The SF Encyclopedia says this novel is sf (I looked it up!)
…In Johnson’s story, the equivalent of Wuhan is New York, the virus breaks out at the Bronx zoo. Soon the rest of the world bans planes travelling from the US. The main characters are involved in a desperate attempt to track down a rare breed of green monkey, which was the source of the virus.
Some subplots are more improbable than others. One involves the Brazilian head of the World Health Organization and his deputy, a sinister, monocle-wearing Russian with an upper-class English accent, travelling to the Congo to personally oversee the destruction of monkeys responsible for the virus … or so they thought….
(15) RETIRE TO A SAFE DISTANCE. “Coronavirus Fears Have NASA Urging Space Fans To Stay Away From Historic Launch” – NPR has the story.
Because of the coronavirus, NASA’s top official is asking space fans not to travel to Florida later this month to watch astronauts blast off from American soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011.
“When we look back to the space shuttle launches, we had hundreds of thousands of people that would descend on the Kennedy Space Center,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a pre-flight briefing. But, he noted, now is unfortunately not a good time for people to gather in large crowds.
“We’re asking people not to travel to Kennedy, but to watch online or watch on your television at home,” said Bridenstine, who confessed that it made him feel “sad” to have to say this.
The upcoming test flight is historic because the two astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, won’t be flying in a NASA vehicle. Instead, they’ll go up inside a capsule created by SpaceX, the rocket firm founded by wealthy entrepreneur Elon Musk.
This first launch of people in a company-owned spacecraft, currently scheduled for 4:32 p.m. EDT on May 27, will be a milestone for both NASA and commercial spaceflight.
(16) REMEMBER THAT MAN-MADE VIRUS? “Love Bug’s creator tracked down to repair shop in Manila”.
The man behind the world’s first major computer virus outbreak has admitted his guilt, 20 years after his software infected millions of machines worldwide.
Filipino Onel de Guzman, now 44, says he unleashed the Love Bug computer worm to steal passwords so he could access the internet without paying.
He claims he never intended it to spread globally.
And he says he regrets the damage his code caused.
“I didn’t expect it would get to the US and Europe. I was surprised,” he said in an interview for Crime Dot Com, a forthcoming book on cyber-crime.
The Love Bug pandemic began on 4 May, 2000.
Victims received an email attachment entitled LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU. It contained malicious code that would overwrite files, steal passwords, and automatically send copies of itself to all contacts in the victim’s Microsoft Outlook address book.
Within 24 hours, it was causing major problems across the globe, reportedly infecting 45 million machines. It also overwhelmed organisations’ email systems, and some IT managers disconnected parts of their infrastructure to prevent infection.
(17) FROST ON THE PUMPKIN. Bob Burns’ Hollywood Halloween shows a unique haunted house put together in 2002 by some well-known special effects creators.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Lise Andreasen, Michael Toman, Contrarius, Mike Kennedy, Cliff Ramshaw, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
@Dann —
Yeah, no. Genitalia don’t shoot bullets.
Yeah, no. In reality, this is a fairly simple way of keeping commercial fishing closed down while allowing individual canoers/kayakers/rowers to maintain their hobbies. Or would you rather she REALLY micromanaged, like issuing an order that four-person rowing crews would be allowed, but not eight-person crews?
And hopefully you don’t need to be micromanaged into refraining from doing this during the pandemic.
And so on. Usually you can find solid reasoning behind what you see as “micromanaging”.
And serious home gardeners are likely to have bought their seeds online back in January and February. Ask me how I know this. 😉
That said, I’d have to actually see the text of the policy before swallowing your claim on seeds wholesale. Nurseries being closed down, sure — I can see that, because of the crowding, unless they develop curbside delivery programs.
You mean like Pence? You mean like Trump? Really, Dann, this sounds a lot like pot/kettling.
You mean like the Florida govt, where they are now closing some of the parks back down because those supposed “adults” couldn’t even figure out how to maintain social distancing in the Great Outdoors?
Soon Lee says Canada: suffers a mass shooting. Bans assault weapons
not in any full sense. The proposed ban is riddled with exemptions and doesn’t even go into effect for several years. Just give a listen to CBC news and you’ll see how disgusted gun control advocates are over it.
@Dann665–Other people have covered other points, but:
Now you’re just pretending you wouldn’t have a cow over enforcement of emergency restrictions on how close individuals a group of golfers could be to each other, or whether more than one person could be in golf cart. And we know this because you think that the practice of kayakers “raffting up in close proximity to each other” isn’t an example, in this pandemic, of people not acting like responsible adults.
And finally, of course, that “protest” at the Michigan state house wasn’t any normal definition of “peaceful.” “Protesters” armed with long guns of intentionally military-looking design were standing right up against state house security, unmasked, screaming in their faces. That’s not peaceful. That’s intentional (attempted) intimidation.
That’s not peaceful, and no amount of handwaving will change the fact that that was an attempt by armed “protesters” who do not represent even a significant minority of opinion in Michigan,trying to intimidate the governor into changing her quite sensible policies. It’s likely there are some problems with some parts of the emergency order, because nothing complex is perfect the first time through. Unfortunately, you’ve demonstrated that we can’t just take your word for it on what the problems might be.
And finally: masks and Governor Whitmer. When you complain about her not showing leadership by not masking up in March–what specifically are you talking about? Not masking up when she was giving a speech or holding a presser? Pretty much no one does that, because it’s easy to maintain social distance (at least, if you’re not stuck at one of Trump’s coronavirus pressers), and it makes it a bit easier for the mics to pick you up properly.
When you need to mask up is when you can’t maintain social distance.
So you’ll have to be more specific about Whitmer showing a shocking lack of leadership by not masking up.
@Cat,
I haven’t read deeply into Canada’s proposed ban so forgive me for missing details. In New Zealand’s case, it was not straightforward (God/the Devil is in the detail) either. There was a gun buy-back scheme (though many are unhappy about the amount they’ll be reimbursed) and an amnesty both of which have expired. There are also limited exemptions to the new laws.
Aaaaand the laughs just keep coming:
Trump refused to wear a mask today — while he was touring a mask factory!!
You can’t make this shit up…..
Soon Lee says I haven’t read deeply into Canada’s proposed ban so forgive me for missing details. In New Zealand’s case, it was not straightforward (God/the Devil is in the detail) either. There was a gun buy-back scheme (though many are unhappy about the amount they’ll be reimbursed) and an amnesty both of which have expired. There are also limited exemptions to the new laws.
Yeah the American media boiled the Canadian announcement down to all out ban too. The CBC went into great detail how it was much less than what than that and that both sides of the political divide there were unhappy with it for different reasons, ie anyone who surrendered an automatic weapon could file an appeal to get it back within a certain time frame and provided they hadn’t committed any serious crimes would be allowed to keep it in their home.
Keeping people crowded inside, where they are going to get what whoever lives with them gets, rather than allowing them to crowd together outside, where the air isn’t continually recirculated and dense with viruses, makes no sense to me whatsoever from any point of view, epidemiological, psychological, or general health.
My roommate, who works at a pizza delivery place and will inevitably bring home coronavirus, told me last month* on the first that all the drivers were talking about parties everywhere they were delivering. All those parties were inside, with doors and windows shut. People will get sick from it.
This is not a short-term problem. It’ll take time to get past it. There may not be a good solution. If distancing has to extend a long time, it has to be looser or it’ll break.
*I haven’t thought to ask about this month
John A Arkansawyer: Keeping people crowded inside, where they are going to get what whoever lives with them gets… makes no sense to me whatsoever from any point of view, epidemiological, psychological, or general health.
The whole point is that people aren’t supposed to be crowded together inside.
Your roommate is unfortunately having to deliver to idiots. If his boss was on-the-ball, they’d have arranged for contactless advance payment (with option to tip) and contactless delivery (i.e., your roommate sets the pizzas down at the door, stands way back, and calls the customer to tell them their delivery has arrived).
Why his employer is not already doing that is a mystery to me. It seems like a no-brainer.
‘
That is very true.
The problem I have with that meme is the implication that it is certain people who have found this special balance between the two.
In California, which locked down early and increasingly tightly as the reality of COVID-19 became clear, is now starting to open up, not because shutdown didn’t work, but because it did.
New York, the first of the northeast states to lock down, is now seeing a decline in COVID-19 numbers, and is looking at starting to open up, cautiously, and regionally–very loosely, upstate before NYC.
Massachusetts, New Jersey, other states, aren’t there yet, but we’re getting closer.
Meanwhile, the states that are rushing to reopen now, are states where they were late to shut down at all, and where COVID-19 numbers are still climbing.
The idea that shutdown is a more dangerous response to the pandemic than remaining open and pushing people to go out, work in workplaces that have no real precautions (such as meat packing plants, which are a total disaster right now), etc., is just completely disconnected from the reality of the virus, the data, and human behavior.
I don’t think Massachusetts is going to reopen on May 18, but I do think we’ll have a serious shot at being past the worst of the pandemic here when we do–while the states that have meat packing plants and no shutdowns are headed for disaster. And not “just” the public health disaster; it’s going to be an economic disaster, too. Too many of those meat packing workers, and their families, friends, and neighbors, are going to die or have significant organ damage, because nothing is being done to stop the spread of COVID-19 among them.
There really isn’t a quick, easy, painless way to get out of this. The only way out is through, and the “let’s reopen the economy because we can’t afford not to” approach is just an attempt to deny that reality.
Lis Carey: Too many of those meat packing workers, and their families, friends, and neighbors, are going to die or have significant organ damage, because nothing is being done to stop the spread of COVID-19 among them.
Oh, yes. The “Libertarians” like to pretend that each individual is accountable for protecting themselves, and if they expose themselves to viruses that’s on them, not on society as a whole.
But of course that totally ignores the fact that there is a large swath of Americans who don’t have the financial resources to stay home and protect themselves, who are forced to risk themselves to go out and perform low-paying jobs because they have to feed their family and don’t dare get evicted from where they’re living, or to have their electricity and water shut off.
A close friend of mine who has a couple of PhDs in health sciences (but hasn’t practiced clinically for at least a couple of decades) volunteered for a medical team who went to one of the Tyson plants to test employees the weekend of April 25-26. The lines of employees waiting to be tested were many blocks long, and some of them stood in line for more than 7 hours to get tested. In the weeks leading up to that, the plant’s managers had been telling everyone they had to show up for work or be fired, even if they were experiencing Covid-19 symptoms. And of course the company was not providing adequate PPE or distancing measures. More than half of the 2,800 employees tested positive. These results were echoed at numerous meat-processing plants owned by Tyson (and by other companies) across the Midwest.
That same weekend, Tyson executives put a full-page ad in several major newspapers warning that the food supply was at risk — with the full knowledge that they had for weeks been endangering the lives of many thousands of employees, plus many more thousands of those employees’ families and neighbors and random contacts.
And most of the areas where these plants are located do not have anything approaching sufficient medical facilities to provide all of these infected people with adequate care.
There’s a cold place in hell waiting for the executives and Trump administration sycophants who were willing to make all of those people sacrificial lambs to their own personal profits.
@JJ:
True! And yet, they already are. In the two-bedroom house where my roommate last lived, not far from that pizza place (it’s a twenty-minute drive from here), there were three people, each of them working in a different restaurant job. (And my roommate working two.) A policy that doesn’t account for that won’t be successful.
My roommate is working two restaurant jobs now, in three locations. I’m probably going to get the coronavirus from him when he gets it, which he probably will. There’s not a lot I can do about it, other than hope against a more contagious or more lethal mutation and hope that the treatments are better if and when I do get it.
The buyers of those pizzas are no more idiotic than average and the employer’s behavior is anything but a no-brainer.
The pizza eaters are behaving as humans have always behaved during plagues. They keep on fulfilling their human needs. Eating, sexing, hanging out. A policy that works over a long period of time accepts what people are capable of doing and doesn’t ask the abhuman of them.
If you, personally, would like to look at the demographics of the area, I’ll send you the address. You can see for yourself what the area looks like. It’s not as poor as some parts of Arkansas, but it’s a badly beat community whose main source of revenue is spending by people stationed at the base. This pizza place does great business–they set a regional record a few days ago–because, among other reasons, they deliver in parts of town other pizza places won’t. If I’m driving to pick him up from work, he figures the shut down time in part by the schedule of when peoples’ checks arrive. Paychecks on the base and safety net payments elsewhere.
And that should tell you one reason this pizza place offers no-contact delivery but doesn’t mandate it: A lot of the people they sell to are paying in cash. Along with the people living off subsidies, there are–like all poor neighborhoods–some folks dodging creditors by cashing paper paychecks and others living off illegal or off-books work.
And this is why I think Stephen Colbert is counterproductive. People whose primary characteristic isn’t being smart, but being smarter than those people, aren’t.
The business is doing great! They’re offering significant hourly bonuses–so they don’t increase salaries or rack up more overtime, of course–and hiring new people every day. They’re raking in the money hand over fist. They don’t have any fear of liability. And did I mention the hand over fist part? Pretty good for no-brainers.
@Lis Carey
Taking this back to front, I said that kayakers raft up to point out that the Governor’s order was not based on any science. She could have banned all boating and that would at least have been consistent and vaguely sound from a scientific basis.
I was not suggesting that rafting up was a good practice during a pandemic. It is a normal practice during normal times.
I am suggesting that the dividing line between permitted and banned behavior did not have any basis in science or logic.
At the front, that is a bad faith presumption on your part. I already said she could have described the conditions to be avoided and leave it up to individuals and businesses to figure out how to live within those parameters.
For the record, I thought Governor Whitmer shut down Michigan at about the right time. I largely support her recent extension of the shutdown. Doing some things right doesn’t mean that she is exempt from criticism where her leadership has been….suboptimal.
The same goes for President Trump.
@Camestros
Sure. Maybe. In some cases. And maybe there are cases where that is a preconception that you are bringing to that rhetorical party.
@Contrarius
And the non-commercial hobbyist fisherman that uses a motorized bass boat to get to their fishing hole?
A note of personal frustration – there are very few 100% conditions in science. Deaths due to economic damage are just as important as deaths due to the virus. And the government does not have a magic wand that will “make it all OK”.
I see too many friends of all sorts of persuasions that are perfectly willing to ignore that reality.
Regards,
Dann
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. – Isaac Asimov
@John A. Arkansawyer–
People living together are exposed to each other and whatever they’re carrying anyway. You can’t eliminate that risk; it’s hard to reduce it without far harsher measures than anyone has proposed elsewhere than China (possibly North Korea, but who knows?)
But having big, crowded parties, crowded beaches, returning to pre-pandemic conditions in businesses where close contact among people who don’t live together, substantially increases that risk. Social distancing, masks, closing down non-essential businesses, those things reduce risk.
We can see the effectiveness in the states that have been doing it, even more so in the states that started it first vs. the states that started a bit later vs. the states that barely paused before deciding it was time to open up fully again. We see it in the meatpacking plants, where the numbers not just in the plants but in the communities are exploding. In the nursing homes. In the prisons and jails–where however much moral satisfaction you care to take in not caring about the prisoners, the guards and other staff go home to their families every night. And there is very little testing going on in any of these places. No, taking everyone’s temperature as they come in does nothing. People are contagious before they show symptoms, and even if they remain asymptomatic.
We need to start taking this seriously, and behaving accordingly. And that does not mean pretending that the fact that people live with other people means that stay-at-home orders and masks and social distancing and shutting down nonessential businesses are all pointless.
Nice attempt at palming that card!
JJ said, not that the business owner is a “no-brainer” in the very atypical sense of him being “brainless”, which you’re clearly attempting to imply she meant, but that contactless delivery, which most businesses have implemented, and contactless payment, which many but certainly all have managed, are “no-brainers” in the sense of being obvious, common sense steps that, yes, most businesses have adopted one or both of, to reduce risk to their employees.
What is this business owner you’re apparently so impressed by going to do when enough of his employees have gotten sick that the others don’t want to run the risk anymore?
Both Georgia and Texas are finding that declaring the state is open for business doesn’t automatically mean the customers come flooding back as if everything were now “normal.” Georgia went first, and businesses that did open up are now shutting down, because they can’t afford to be fully staffed with few or no customers. Texas only just reopened a few days ago–but they’re finding the malls and theaters and restaurants are empty. I have an older sister and a nephew who is married and has kids, who are being very clear they’re not abandoning masks and social distancing while the numbers are still climbing.
This is being very hard on small businesses and on workers who can’t work from home and have family they want to keep safe. In Georgia in particular, but some other states, too, this pretty openly about forcing people off of unemployment. If their employer opens up and calls them back to work, entirely rational fear of getting a potentially deadly, highly contagious virus and bringing it home to family, has explicitly been excluded as an acceptable reason for not going back to work. So they’re being forced to choose between safety and income.
What we need to do about this is provide broader, more robust support for both small businesses and for workers who can’t do their jobs from home. That’s not “socialism;” that’s dealing with the reality of the crisis we’re in.
If the hard right keeps pretending we can reopen the economy without first dealing with the public health crisis, we are going to dig ourselves into a hole we won’t get out of for at least a decade.
@John —
Baloney.
You’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here.
Nope, there is no perfect solution, as long as anyone is forced to go out into the world to make a living and get exposed. But throwing up your hands and declaring “Well, if we can’t have a PERFECT solution, we should just give up and not do anything at all!” is just silly.
Remember: your roommate is just ONE person that you’re being crowded with. Sure, he’s being exposed to others, but those “others” are one degree removed from you — thus lowering your risk. But if you yourself go out into that outside crowd, your exposure is direct and therefore higher. Every step you can take away from direct exposure is a step in the right direction.
We can’t get to perfect. But we can get closer to the good.
@Contrarius:
You–and I mean this somewhat collectively, for those to whom it applies–are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You would rather have a perfect set of rules which people cannot, and thus will not, follow, rather than a good enough set of rules which people will follow well enough.
If you run into someone who says that, tell them for me to go to hell.
@Lis Carey:
By “impressed by”, do you mean “impressed only by the skill and callousnesss with which he inflicts economic and other violence on his employees, and by extension, his customers, and am otherwise disgusted by and enraged at”? I hope so. Because otherwise, you misrepresent me.
If that’s what you meant, it’s certainly not what you conveyed by the words you typed on the screen.
You also haven’t responded to my question. How well do you think he’s going to be doing when his workers are among the hospitalized?
What I’d like to see you engage with is why, if the current rules are so oppressive that people “cannot, and thus will not, follow,” why are the states actually holding people to those rules doing better against the virus? Washington state and California are starting to open up again. New York has reached the point where it’s asking parts of the state where numbers are best and population density is lower to submit plans for reopening. Massachusetts isn’t quite there yet, but getting closer.
And Florida is having to shut down beaches again.
Georgia and Texas are finding that businesses and workers aren’t nearly as ready to open up as the governor wanted to believe. Texas, of course, had its highest number of new cases the very day they officially “reopened,” which might have been a bit of a damper.
The scary rates of increase in new cases aren’t in the northeast or the west coast, anymore. They’re coming from blood red states determined to keep their meatpacking plants open, who don’t want to test all the workers in the plants but want to pretend that taking their temperatures when they enter at start of shift is a meaningful safety precaution.
Also, of course, the prisons, especially the private, for-profit prisons. Again, no testing, no safety equipment or safety equipment that’s expected to last ridiculous amounts of time, being replaced only when it’s filthy.
This is not how you stop a pandemic disease. You stop it by doing all those things you think are “too much.” The things people in California and New York and New Jersey and Massachusetts are tough enough to do, but which seem to be too hard for some of the people who like to sneer at us.
@John —
Yeah, no.
You yourself are complaining that the rules as they are — in your case, you are staying in while your roommate is forced to work outside the home — are not perfect enough and thus aren’t doing any good at all.
We, on the other hand, are saying “Yup, these rules aren’t perfect. We know they aren’t perfect. But there isn’t going to be any such thing as perfect, and we’re doing the best we can.”
Okay, John, then go to hell. Because that’s exactly what you’re doing — you just won’t admit to it.
@Dann —
First you say that the governor should trust people to act responsibly, and now you’re blaming her because she is trusting people to act responsibly. Seriously, would you at least try to stop contradicting yourself?
She has set a limit — no motorized fishing — that keeps commercial fisheries closed down while permitting hobbyists to get out on the water. She is trusting people like kayakers to not bunch up. If she had banned all boating, THAT may have been a gross overreach.
See my earlier comments about perfect and good. You’re not going to get perfect rules — only ones that are as good as the legislators can make them.
If you permit motorized boating, then you have to get enforcement officers out there to actually count how many people are on each motorized boat. It’s much simpler if you just ban motorized boating in general — less enforcement needed, and enforcement is much easier.
@Lis Carey, Contrarius: I suggest you two talk to each other about this. It’s clear you want to talk with someone who doesn’t think what I think. If you did, one of you would represent what I said as I said it, and the other of you wouldn’t represent what I said as I didn’t mean it. So pair up and have fun debating! Not my sport, though.
I live three blocks from the first hot spot in the state, 41 cases in one nursing home and, thank goodness, no deaths. My roommate’s mom is in a home where there’ve been cases. My kid’s mom was diagnosed with it and was in bed sick for days, with a prescribed inhaler so she could breathe. I am on quarantine from work after a fever.
If you think I don’t take this seriously, you need to think again. If you think I don’t agree with the general thrust of the distancing program, you are sadly mistaken. And if you think that means EVERY DAMN RULE THAT EVERY DAMN PERSON MAKES IS RIGHT AND UNQUESTIONABLE, then you are an ideologically-blinded fool.
It sounds like someone explaining to me how they accumulated their third billion dollars and every bit of it is theirs, because the system under which they gathered their ill-gotten gains is obviously perfect, the best of all possible regimes, and any criticism of any part of it is clearly an attempt to play Sampson in the Temple.
@John —
You said, and I quote:
This statement is complete baloney, as has already been explained in some detail. If you wish to retract or modify your original statement, by all means do so. Otherwise, please stop trying to pretend you didn’t say what you said.
@Contrarius: You said, and I quote:
Until you stop making false statements about what I believe, and putting words in my mouth I haven’t said, you aren’t worth engaging with.
If you want a debate, go back to high school. If you want a discussion, grow up.
@Lis Carey: I agree with almost everything you’ve written that isn’t in direct opposition to what I’m saying. Let me give you an analogy that might clarify my thinking.
When I facilitate a junior high or high school sex education class, the curriculum we use is not an abstinence-only curriculum. We make it clear that waiting to have intercourse later in life is the safest possible option. We also make it clear we know some of them will anyway, and counsel them on how to do so as safely as possible.
That’s all I’m saying about being outside: Given the harms of being inside a small cramped environment–I’m betting domestic violence has gone up, as have arguments with kids, and just all sorts of home-based trauma–encouraging people to gather loosely outside–and hassling those that cluster too close–is worth doing.
I’ve seen many examples of people doing this sort of thing. There was a parade through Eureka Springs two weekends ago. The parade was totally responsible: Three pickups, each with a single guitarist in back, three marchers some distance apart. If only the sidewalks crowded with tourists weren’t there!
But were the complaints about the tourists? Heck, no! The complaints were about the parade. The tourists, of course, mean money. They are not infectious at any distance.
And that’s silly. That’s security theater as epidemiology.
@John —
John — what is unreasonable about acknowledging that there is no such thing as perfect rules? Why is such a belief worthy of condemnation in your eyes?
I have quoted you word by word, John. If you don’t like the words you’ve said, I can’t help that.
@John —
The complaints were about the parade, of course, because that was what encouraged the tourists to gather in a crowd in the first place.
Think, John. These things tend to make sense if you just stop to think about them.
@Contrarius: Have you ever been to a tourist town? Do you think people make reservations months, weeks, even days in advance for a stay in a pricey town for a parade that was unannounced and had no official sanction? Those streets were already packed. The parade was the safest thing on it.
Would you like me to get my friend the former city councilman to explain it to you? Who is backing the restrictions even though he’d just closed his last restaurant and was about to open a new one? My acquaintance on the quorum court who repented of the knee-jerk reaction you had once he knew the facts?
Or maybe just possibly consider that possibly this time you possibly just maybe do not know every fact about something you assume the worst about?
This is the wrong damn room for an argument.
Cripes. I’m mad. Let me say something nice:
When this is all over, go visit Eureka Springs. It’s a beautiful town.
@John A. Arkansawyer–Okay, I was going to drop it, but then:
The parade was an attractive nuisance.
Even if the tourists were in Eureka Springs anyway, the parade encouraged them to gather along the sidewalks of the parade route.
Which is a great way to gather together lots of people in close contact, and enable them to innocently spread highly contagious disease to each other. And then they all go home, either immediately, or after a few more days of transmitting that same highly contagious disease to various locals.
That’s why parades are being canceled in so many places. Not because the marchers can’t reasonably well be organized to not present (much) risk to each other. Because the parade gathers spectators together, who transmit it to each other.
That is one of the major ways the 1918 influenza spread through the civilian population in the US. The most notable example, I think, was the Philadelphia parade to promote the sale of war bonds. And the American influenza epidemic exploded in Philadelphia. Also, of course, in other cities that just had to have their parades, despite being advised by public health experts that it was a really bad idea.
Not “security theater.” Common sense. Don’t create situations that provide ideal conditions for spreading infectious disease when you’re in the midst of a global pandemic.
Not very different from Floridians bitching and moaning about “New Yorkers” bringing COVID-19 to Florida, while their pathetic idiot of a governor steadfastly refused to close the beaches, the very crowded beaches, for an extended “spring break” because, after all, Florida needed their tourist dollars.
But, hey, not his fault! It isn’t even spring breakers without the sense to stay away! Nope. It is, specifically, the fault of the “New Yorkers.”
And this just gets really tiresome.
Oh, and your other point, such as it was:
I’ll bet you don’t tell them not to bother with condoms, or to engage in orgies with strangers.
Because in terms of spreading disease, that would be the equivalent of no masks and going out into large gatherings of people not respecting social distancing.
No one is telling you that you can’t go out at all. You have to wear masks. You need to maintain social distancing. You absolutely can walk your dog, or go for a run.
But don’t go to parties, or do other things where you’re not going be maintaining social distance.
And finally–yes, domestic violence is a real problem, likely being made worse right now, but no, sorry, I don’t see the people protesting against masks and social distancing advocating for resources and assistance for victims of domestic violence. Instead, they complain about their need for haircuts.
So, no, not impressed.
In New Zealand we have been lucky with the messaging about distancing, describing the basic principle & reasoning using “bubble” as a descriptor. Your bubble is your immediate household & the idea is to keep to your own bubble as much as possible. https://thespinoff.co.nz/covid-19/01-04-2020/siouxsie-wiles-toby-morris-why-those-bubbles-are-so-important/
The other aspect that has been key is clear guidelines on what is permitted under the different levels of restrictions. While those guidelines are clear, they are not perfect & do not cover all contingencies. But then nothing is perfect & there are always edge cases & restrictions that don’t always make sense.
But in general, we are encouraged to follow the principles, not try to find loopholes. Part of what makes distancing work is people not being a$$holes.
@Lis Carey: If only you had spent days of your life in Eureka Springs during tourist seasons of all sorts, and had experienced what it was like, you would not be so confident about what you say. The real crime is having the tourist season in the first place.
Seriously, go visit. I will personally buy you dinner at my friend’s next restaurant, if he manages to open it. I may not drive up, but I’ll cover the check.
@Soon Lee: “But in general, we are encouraged to follow the principles, not try to find loopholes.”
You have an actual leader in your country! I’m jealous. I know your entrance screening is very strict right now. Would you characterize the “principles”–which I think is an easier sell to people than “rules”–as tight or loose? Or am I asking a falsely binary question? I’d love to hear what people from a sensible country are doing. We aren’t.
Please. Drown me out. I beg of you. Tell us what it’s like in a sane world.
Of course, that’s a possibility, it’s just that I’m not aware of people on the left or the right who do not regularly express concern about governments or agents of governments deciding that our rights are secondary to their interests. Absolutely there are arguments about WHICH rights who gets included in that little word “our” but the notion of a trade-off between dealing with threat X and the right A, B & C of groups M isn’t some new argument. Also, in general left and right and most people in between are not cool with the idea of dying and indeed would see dying in an avoidable and involuntary way as very, very much a violation of their rights. So these special people who consider the balance between avoidable death on the one hand and government meddling on the other is…almost everybody?
So as an insight into the current situation it seems…very limited. The question is really about WHOSE rights and WHICH rights. Ironically, once you invoke “rights” you’ve already dragged government and its bureaucratic interests into the argument because that’s the instrument you have for codifying and enforcing rights.
And I guess that boils down to a question as to which rights of which people, the meme owner thought were being sacrificed to government’s bureaucratic interests BEFORE the pandemic and which rights of which people the meme owner regarded as at worst a necessary evil to secure the safety (and hence rights) of WHICH people.
@John —
John, I can’t see how there would have been huge crowds of tourists in Eureka Springs two weeks ago who had made reservations many months in advance, because I just read in the Eureka Springs Independent that the hotels have been closed and that “the area is not seeing heavy traffic”.
I tried to find the specific parade you’re talking about so that I could be sure we were on the same page with details about the event, but I couldn’t find anything that seemed to fit for Eureka Springs in April. Could you provide some sources, maybe?
Also, what Lis said.
Also, speaking of ever being to a tourist town — I grew up in Nashville. 😉
@Contrarius: It just barely happened. It was that small a thing.
Here’s a Facebook thread about it.
Here’s the Facebook events page for it.
I was not there and did not witness it. Trust what you read there over what I say.
@John —
Okay, so here’s your original complaint:
But in reality, there were no tourists — aside from one resident who mentioned a couple of motorcyclists who “might” have been from out of town. So, no, of course the complaints weren’t about the tourists — who weren’t there.
btw, I did appreciate the way the organizer advertised the parade, emphasizing the need to maintain distancing:
“For this Social Distance Parade, you’ve got the best seat in the house- YOUR House! We’re bringing the joy of a good old fashioned Eureka Springs Parade into your Neighborhoods, and pairing it with a mobile concert featuring some of your favorite local artists!
“Some guidelines for viewing: Please respect and follow all Social Distancing guidelines; no congregating or gathering to view the parade- stay on your porch or in your own yard and adhere to Quarantine Procedures; Use of a Mask is suggested; Do not block the flow of traffic or any access points.”
@Contrarius: As I said, “I was not there and did not witness it. Trust what you read there over what I say.” My memory of the bikers–who sounded like tourist penii to me–is what I turned into a memory of tourists on the sidewalk. That was augmented by my many, many days in Eureka Springs.
There were complaints about the parade, but I don’t know that I can document them at the moment.
But do you see why, at the time this happened, I formed the opinion–reasonable, I think–that this was a harmless event that did people some good?
I get why it’s a bad idea to go around saying, “All those rules are a bunch of BS,” especially since it isn’t true. I get why going on a crusade about the ones that are flawed or unnecessary wouldn’t be responsible. But we’re talking here. In a public place, I grant you. But not on the street corner rabble-rousing.
I’m saying a few of the rules I’ve seen seem bad and a few of the complaints I’ve heard seem reasonable; that It’s worth reviewing them as time goes on, especially as people start to really wear on each other; and that I think good public health is easier to sell people on when moralism (as opposed to ethics) is noticeably kept out.
And that peoples’ elemental needs have to be met, as safely as possible.
Sorry for getting so angry. This crisis hasn’t killed anyone I know yet, but it has put the hurt on me in various ways, and it’s not over yet. I’m mad at the responsible authorities who are making mistakes and overreaches, because that makes the responsible people look foolish. I’m enraged at the authorities who are underreacting. I’m ticked at myself for going into work Sunday and possibly exposing a student studying for finals, but at least it looks like I just have a bad cold. Pretty much every damn body involved? I’m mad at them. I’m even mad at Fauci about AIDS all over again, and I know in retrospect he was actually one of the good guys. I mean, really.
JJ: The whole point is that people aren’t supposed to be crowded together inside.
John A Arkansawyer: True! And yet, they already are. In the two-bedroom house where my roommate last lived, not far from that pizza place (it’s a twenty-minute drive from here), there were three people, each of them working in a different restaurant job. (And my roommate working two.) A policy that doesn’t account for that won’t be successful.
You’ve managed to jam a whole bunch of fallacious arguments into just a few comments. Lis and Contrarius have already pointed out many of them to you. I’m going to address this one.
Three people living in a residence isn’t “crowded together inside”. It’s a family unit. And the rules are intended to address limiting contact within family groups — what Soon Lee is referring to as their “bubble”. But I’m sure you know these things.
The problem is that financial strictures prevent your roommates from maintaining strict isolation from outside groups. You claim that a policy which doesn’t account for that won’t be successful, and that the current policy doesn’t do that. Yet the current policies attempt to mitigate those risks as much as possible. I’d really love to hear what you think a fully-successful policy would be. Because it seems to me that you are complaining that a partially-successful policy is worse than no policy at all, or worse than some perfect policy which simply does not exist — which is just blatantly false.
John A Arkansawyer: The buyers of those pizzas are no more idiotic than average.
Of course they are. You said they are throwing parties. That is way more idiotic than the average people, who have been doing the best they can to protect themselves by not engaging in such risky behaviors.
John A Arkansawyer: A policy that works over a long period of time accepts what people are capable of doing and doesn’t ask the abhuman of them.
What we are facing right now as a human race is massive — far more momentous than anything else most of us have ever had to deal with in our lifetimes. This situation is literally Adapt, or Die. There is no policy which will both protect people and not ask them to make major changes in their lifestyles. Yet you are insisting that such a policy should somehow be magically found.
John A Arkansawyer: The business is doing great! They’re offering significant hourly bonuses – so they don’t increase salaries or rack up more overtime, of course – and hiring new people every day. They’re raking in the money hand over fist. They don’t have any fear of liability. And did I mention the hand over fist part? Pretty good for no-brainers.
As Lis pointed out, that’s a nice try at pretending I called the business owner a “no-brainer”. I know you’re not stupid, and I know you know how to read and understand what you’re reading. If you wish to be taken seriously, you will need to stop arguing so dishonestly. This is a chronic habit of yours — arguing dishonestly. You do not do yourself any favors by persisting in it. Why do you keep doing this?
Implementing a contactless (or as little contact as is absolutely possible) delivery system is indeed a no-brainer, and many businesses have already done so. I understand that in poor areas many people operate in a cash-basis society, but there are ways to provide employees with the ability to accept cash with less risk — for example, providing drivers with ziploc bags in which they can ask the customers to put their payment, with some sort of fumigation arrangement to disinfect the cash when they get back to home base.
If the business owner continues to risk his employees and customers in this way, he will continue to prosper right up until the point where it becomes known due to contact tracing and the media that his pizza delivery service is a hotbed of infection which has lost numerous drivers to the illness, who have also managed to spread the illness to other customers as well as to their family groups.
John A Arkansawyer: You have an actual leader in your country! I’m jealous.
You do understand that New Zealand has implemented even stricter isolation policies than the ones you are complaining about, don’t you? And yet somehow the vast majority of Kiwis have managed to comply with policies that you complain are “abhuman” and “beyond humans’ capabilities”.
The difference here isn’t really the leader (though the gods know that having a President and governors who aren’t selfish idiots with complete disregard for human life would certainly help).
The difference is the attitude of those being governed. Most New Zealanders understand the importance of following isolation guidelines, and are making their best efforts to do so. Many Americans are just intent on rebelliously insisting “You Aren’t The Boss Of Me” and engaging in self-destructive behavior which is going to get themselves and a lot of other people killed.
@John —
There were a couple of complaints about it there on the Facebook page, made before the organizer and participants explained what it had really been like. I think we can all understand that the word “parade” is likely to touch off a lot of reactions right now.
Sure, I don’t think there was any harm in this particular parade. It was planned out carefully and advertised responsibly, and there weren’t tourists around to be attracted by it.
This reminds me of a person over on reddit — I sometimes frequent some of the gardening boards over there — who complained about reddit supposedly being full of people ignoring social distancing principles just because somebody posted about the supplies they had bought at Home Depot in order to build some raised beds.
I’ve been going to HD myself throughout this pandemic. I haven’t been inside a grocery store in weeks, but I’ve been inside HD a few times. It’s actually one of the safest places to shop in times like this — AND they have curbside pickup now, which means you don’t even have to go inside. But people hear “went shopping” and get all tense. Understandable!
I’m not happy that my father died in March, but I am still VERY happy that he didn’t have to live through all this pandemic upheaval and tension. This is exactly the sort of thing that would have absolutely driven him out of his mind with anxiety — AND he would have been at incredibly high risk from the disease, AND he would have been living in one of those dreaded long-term care facilities, as well, meaning he would have been cut off from the social support that he so depended on. So I continue to give thanks for small blessings!
Uh-oh! I hope you have testing available where you are!
Dann665: Taking this back to front, I said that kayakers raft up to point out that the Governor’s order was not based on any science. She could have banned all boating and that would at least have been consistent and vaguely sound from a scientific basis.
As per your usual, you’re still completely ignoring valid counter-arguments: that there is a fully-scientific basis for such a decision in that motorized boats have a massively higher chance than non-motorized boats of generating callouts to emergency services — further straining resources which are already overburdened by the pandemic, and putting emergency personnel at further, completely unnecessary, risk of being exposed to the virus.
There is an interesting mechanic at play in the complaints about bureaucracy.
[a] On the one hand, a government could implement rules that are very broad and which make no (or few) exceptions and which are not tailored to circumstance. Such rules are simple to understand and require little explanation.
[b] On the other hand, a government could implement rules that take account of different circumstances, attempt to target the riskiest behaviours, admit many exceptions for particular circumstances.
In the case of [a] the complaint will be that this is typical of bureaucrats and that the rules have been designed to make the work of bureaucrats easier.
In the case of [b] the complaint will be that this is typical of bureaucrats and that the rules have been designed to create more work and power for bureaucrats.
Camestros Felapton: There is an interesting mechanic at play in the complaints about bureaucracy.
Yes, it’s very much a case of “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”. No matter what rules are put into play, they will never be perfect, and the people who wish to do so will always find things about which to complain.
@Cam —
This.
I’m reminded of this quote from David Brin http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/libertarian2.html, which argues that rules get complex because of a desire to allow freedom of action whenever possible.
@JJ:
I do know them. I also know that all three of the adults in that house have children of their own. The other guy was seeing his; I’m not sure about the woman. My roommate and his older child both have pretty good cases of asthma, so they’re high-risk and my roommate isn’t seeing either kid.
That’s going to inflict damage. The kids are five (barely) and two. Circumstances kept them and their dad apart a lot in the months leading up to this, and the second-to-last visit was traumatic for the older one. (Not parentally; it was inflicted from the outside.) If it weren’t for the asthma, I’d say visit; as it is, I tell him he’s doing the right thing.
Those two kids live in a house with four adults and two other kids. I’m pretty sure none of those adults have other kids, but at least one of them has an out-of-the-house partner. A house full of people may resemble a bubble, but in so many cases–I bet there’s a good approximate number–it’s not. There are affectionate bonds that reach outside them, and not everyone can bear to have them broken, even temporarily, to say nothing of the economic forces (which you rightly mark as an underlying issue) which push them together and pull them apart. It’s more a loosely-coupled network with weak (one hopes) links of infection.
There are a lot of houses like that, houses full of people who can only afford to live together, plexes with neighbors in and out of each others’ sides all day, apartment buildings–especially small ones–where people are continually doing things that keep each other from going under and keep themselves in each others’ business.
(I think more social support would alleviate much of that last need, but I’m not sure what sort or how much.)
It’s a big, poor suburb now, formerly a town, underserved and…I forget the word for developed backwards. Deindustrialized, maybe? Anyway. There are a lot of people there who live like that. They are, for mostly economic reasons, not able to do what, in many cases, they think is best.
Part of the reason I don’t think they are stupid is the conditions I described above, where there’s already a significant amount of contact built in. Part of the reason is that I don’t know exactly what the parties are like. That came secondhand to me. Is it a party with five people and two six-packs getting high the first day they can afford it in two weeks? That might just be all the adults in the house cutting loose. Or is it a full house and a half-empty keg, in which case call the cops on them. And part of it is the fatalism of knowing they live in conditions which are likely to make them sick no matter what they do, likelier than people with money and power.
You did not do that, and if you feel misused by how I said that, I apologize. I don’t know how to describe someone who misses a no-brainer without saying they’re not terribly bright, though. To say someone missed a no-brainer is not complimenting their brain. So modulo the quotation, I think the essence of what I said there stands.
I don’t think either the people in the cheap houses buying pizzas and partying down or the people making the big bucks selling them pizzas are stupid. I think the people in the cheap houses are the wretched of the earth and the people with the big bucks are the ones who make them so.
I think this business owner has calculated that he’ll be able to get away with it. He expects some form of liability release from the federal government, and for the state government to help loosen up the labor market and drop wages again. He thinks he’s got enough power to get people to die on the job unnecessarily. He’s probably right.
I only wish it were stupidity, rather than callous, depraved intelligence turned to harm.
I hope you are right that this sort of irresponsible behavior comes back to bite them. The ancestors of the people who lived downstream of the levees wealthy New Orleans landowners had dynamited–unnecessarily, it turned out–to protect their own property at the expense of that downstream had the same hopes. They’re still waiting.
A friend of mine who lives in another part of the country delivers pizzas and was thinking of quitting–but how to pay the bills?–because of all the contact a few weeks ago. I told him to talk to his boss about offering a contactless service for his own profit. He said the boss didn’t care. He just wanted drivers. Depraved indifference.
John A Arkansawyer: part of it is the fatalism of knowing they live in conditions which are likely to make them sick no matter what they do, likelier than people with money and power.
I grieve for you, and for all of the people whose financial circumstances make it impossible for them to keep themselves as safe as possible — especially those who work for the employers who are guilty of depraved indifference.
I am so, so thankful for the people who are risking themselves while providing healthcare and making sure that we are able to get the food and other supplies we need from the grocery stores. Not a day has gone by in the last 6 weeks that I haven’t been very conscious of — and thankful for — the privilege I experience by being able to safely work from home and by continuing to be able to eat as normal and pay my rent and other bills.
It’s my very fervent hope that one of the few good things to come out of this pandemic will be a heightened sense in the United States of how important it is for us to all take care of each other and to help those who aren’t as fortunate as we are. U.S. political, workplace, and healthcare systems are so very broken — and this may be our best opportunity to make them better.
@John A. Arkansawyer–Yes, this is going to be hard. It’s likely to traumatic for society as a whole, and for an awful lot individuals.
That’s because we’re going through a global pandemic that is going to kill a frightening number of people–and that’s assuming people actually follow the stay-at-home, mask, and social distancing rules.
Everyone who decides they’re too important to follow the rules, who thinks what they want qualifies as “essential,” even if it’s not, is making this last longer.
Those partiers crowding into one apartment rather than doing a Zoom party are going to keep other people cooped up longer–as well as increasing the burden on the hospital system, because they will spread the virus.
Trump is making some very bad decisions, but fundamentally, the pandemic isn’t a poor decision someone made. The pandemic was coming anyway. But we have the choice of handling it well or handling it badly.
You’re arguing for handling it badly, rather than for pushing our politicians to devote the resources to handle it better.
JJ: As Lis pointed out, that’s a nice try at pretending I called the business owner a “no-brainer”.
John A Arkansawyer: You did not do that, and if you feel misused by how I said that, I apologize. I don’t know how to describe someone who misses a no-brainer without saying they’re not terribly bright, though. To say someone missed a no-brainer is not complimenting their brain. So modulo the quotation, I think the essence of what I said there stands.
I’m going to push back on this. No, your extrapolation is not acceptable.
I try very hard when giving criticism to ensure that I am criticizing the action or the behavior, and not the person. Just because someone says or does something shitty or stupid, it does not therefore logically follow that they are a shitty or stupid person.
And if you make it about the person, then that’s an ad hominem attack, and it allows them to legitimately weasel out of the discussion. They can insist “I’m not a racist!” or “I’m not stupid!”, and feel that they’ve adequately countered your criticism.
If I call someone out for saying something racist or doing something stupid, it’s their words or actions — not their personal identity — which I want to be addressed.
And when someone changes my words from being about the action or the behavior to being about the person, they are fundamentally changing what I’ve said so that they can pretend they’ve countered my argument. That generally tells me they know they can’t legitimately counter my argument, so they have to cheat with weasel words to try to do so.
So no, there is no “modulo” there.
@JJ: As a matter of strict logic, I can’t argue with you about that. As a matter of how words are perceived and understood, I disagree. When you call an idea stupid, there is an implication of fault on the person who presents it. There’s a different sort of fault implied if you call an idea ignorant, another if you call an idea cruel.
For reasons we’ve gone through before, I think smart people of any intelligence level should stop calling people stupid, especially in political discussions. It’s consistent with that belief that I think they should also stop implying that they are stupid. I haven’t convinced you of that and I doubt I will.
John A Arkansawyer: It’s consistent with that belief that I think they should also stop implying that they are stupid. I haven’t convinced you of that and I doubt I will.
In other words, people shouldn’t be allowed to criticize anyone else’s actions or words, because doing so implies that the person who has said or done that thing is stupid (racist, sexist, whatever).
No, you won’t convince me of that. Words and actions should not be immune to criticism simply because it might hurt someone’s feelings to have their words or actions criticized.
@JJ: I’m all for criticism! I think cruel acts should be criticized as cruel, not as stupid. Greedy acts should be criticized as greedy, not stupid. And so on.
My primary reason for discouraging people from calling other people stupid isn’t about the targets. It’s about the interests of the person who says it. It is almost always bad for you to underestimate your opponents. Calling people currently kicking your ass “stupid” misses the point and distracts you from useful action.
It’s greed and cruelty driving people back to work, not stupidity.