“My ignorance is as good as your expertise.”
“Oh, that’s just your education speaking.”
Business acumen is all that counts. I have a pretty bright friend who wanted to go into technology of some sort but his right wing father forced him into a business degree. Now he’s got a store that was failing way before the pandemic, in part because he developed a treatable chronic disease for which he can’t pay for treatment. He has no insurance. Oh, and he was all in for Sarah Palin.
I keep seeing these photos online of cities with empty streets, and that doesn’t match anything locally. We’ve been under a stay-at-home order since Monday morning and yet traffic is just about normal. Apparently it’s all going to grocery stores now though. We had to pick up meds from the grocery store pharmacy yesterday, and had planned to also do some shopping but decided against it because the lot was full. The pharmacy drive-through had a long line too – it took something like 40 minutes.
We figured we’d go out this morning… the Dollar General at the end of our street which normally has 0-2 customers had a line outside (not maintaining 6 feet apart while waiting to get in… do people think it’s not contagious outdoors?) Walgreens didn’t have TP. The discount grocery store was seniors-only, rather than seniors and high-risk people like us. The parking lot at the regular grocery store was full. We went back home in defeat.
I bought Chinese toilet paper from a Californian seller on Ebay, which should arrive before our remaining supplies are gone – if they don’t get “lost” in shipping like the TP my uncle bought. Maybe it’ll come in an unmarked box. I also bought a shattaf / hand bidet.
We want to still support some of our favorite independent local restaurants, so we tried ordering from our favorite ramen shop. Postmates said they weren’t accepting orders. Worried that they’d closed for good, I checked Facebook, and… no, they just posted a photo of their “WILL SEND NOODS” window art this morning. I called them and it turned out their laptop had died. I hope they don’t lose too much business from people assuming they’ve shut down!
The Trader Joe’s where my brother and his wife work isn’t installing sneeze guards because, for some reason, they have cashiers handling peoples’ credit cards and I guess they don’t even grasp the concept of passing things through slots. But the store manager is, at least, personally taking point at the store entrance to enforce social distancing and occupancy limits.
Mr Cuomo earlier told reporters that he had spoken with Mr Trump by phone, but that the president hadn’t mentioned a state “quarantine”.
“I haven’t had those conversations,” he said, adding: “I don’t even know what that means.”
“But I can tell you I don’t even like the sound of it. Not even understanding what it is, I don’t like the sound of it.”
Interview with a participant in a past kerfuffel:
And by the way, if we do this, it is the best way to get the economy moving again. Because if we eliminate the threat of coronavirus in the space of 10 weeks, the economy can be sparked into action. If we proceed in ways that are half-measures, incomplete approaches, gradual and not effective, we will persist with people falling ill, with people fearful, with workplaces disrupted, with an inability to get the economy humming again.
One of my role models, as a child and now:
Buzzes in
What swing state is home to Mar-a-Lago?
Still watching Italy, since it’s large and especially badly-hit.
They’re at 166 dead per 1,000,000 people, and the rates are climbing again, which suggests they’re less than halfway through. But it’s only been 8 years days since the lockdown began, so it will take another 7 years days to see if it’s enough to turn the corner, and it’ll take months overall.
Journal of the Corona Year
3/28
We had almost a complete week of great weather while I needed to work from home. Now it is Saturday, and a chance to get some fresh air. The forecast calls for rain today and tomorrow.
But I still plan on going out. Contact with rain is still contact with nature and will do me more good than staying inside.
Astor Place Hair is securely closed up. There was a sign attached to the barricade at the top of their steps. Appropriate to the shop’s personality, it was hand-written on a piece of cardboard. It read “REOPENING MARCH 30.” I admire their confidence. And I need to get my hair cut pretty soon.
The Cardozo School of Law was closed. Outside the front entrance they had two operating Purell dispensers. So I used some. Why not.
The streets of Manhattan are looking more and more like Minneapolis. Most people you see on the streets are homeless.
I went to Garden of Eden. The first time I’ve been there in two weeks. It was still open. Inside the front door was a box of latex gloves with a sign asking all customers to use them. Here was a wad of latex gloves sticking out of the top of the box. I pulled one. It didn’t move. Without thinking I put my hand on the box and tried to pull out a different glove. I felt more contaminated at that moment than at any other time today.
On the way back to Brooklyn, there was a disruption to the R trains. So I took the N down to 59th Street and walked to 5th Avenue to get a bus. Busses are running regularly.
Passengers are kept away from the driver by having to enter through the rear door. There is no way to collect fares this way. Inside there is a makeshift barrier keeping passengers well-back from the front of the bus. It’s made out of the securing straps intended for passengers with wheelchairs.
By 90th Street I was the last one on the bus. The driver pulled over and started using his phone because he forgot I was there.
Doctor Fauci went to D.C., hoping to ease the U.S.'s pain; but with all that grief from the Idiot-in-Chief, can he survive the strain?
(with apologies to whomever wrote “Doctor Foster” for Mother Goose.)
Monopoly monopoly… the company got bought out and they never built the order.
I also read Florida’s “The Villages” (Largely Republican leaning retirement community in the heart of Florida) was one of the first places to get their own Covid 19 Testing station for its residents.
'Bout time.
This one is looking extremely unlikely – eBay removed the listing. It’s paid for, currently marked as shipped but with a tracking number format that no search engine recognizes. The seller now is marked as being based in China, not California, and (I could slap myself for this) has 0 prior feedbacks and the account was created last month. Apparently I have to wait 10 days “for the item to arrive” before I can contact eBay about a refund.
So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Truly, a result that absolutely no one could possibly have predicted.
But, remember, if you criticize them it’s just because you disagree with their politics:
Though the current crisis would appear epidemiological in nature, Dr. Eppes said he saw it as a reflection of “the political divide.”
“If Liberty sneezes, there are people who don’t like the fact that Liberty sneezed,”