Sound on please - for Guterman's reply.
SPEAKERS ON, PLEASE— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) May 25, 2020
Trump lays one at Arlington National Cemetery on #MemorialDay. pic.twitter.com/gh8uHBHBSc
May 25, 2020
Today's Tweet
Sound on please - for Guterman's reply.
Today
WaPo:
As the death toll in the coronavirus pandemic neared 100,000 Americans this Memorial Day weekend, President Trump derided and insulted perceived enemies and promoted a baseless conspiracy theory, in between rounds of golf.
In a flurry of tweets and retweets Saturday and Sunday, Trump mocked former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s weight, ridiculed the looks of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and called former Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton a “skank.”
He revived long-debunked speculation that a television host with whom Trump has feuded may have killed a woman and asserted without evidence that mail-in voting routinely produces ballot stuffing.
He made little mention of the sacrifice Americans honor on Memorial Day or the grim toll of the virus.
In fact, Trump’s barrage of social media attacks stood in sharp contrast to a sober reality on a weekend for mourning military dead — the number of Americans whose lives have been claimed by the novel coronavirus has eclipsed the combined total of U.S. deaths from wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.
- and -
Rural counties now have some of the highest rates of covid-19 cases and deaths in the country, topping even the hardest-hit New York City boroughs, a Washington Post analysis found.
The alarming increase signals a new phase of the pandemic, one of scattered outbreaks that could devastate some of the country’s most vulnerable towns as states lift stay-at-home orders. The virus has spread rapidly over the past month in places where even a minor surge in patients threatens to overwhelm existing health-care systems.
It took us almost 60 years to get 100,000 Americans killed in military adventures.
It's taken 45* a little over 60 days to match that.
Our "president" is a very small man with very large problems - always a very bad combination.
COVID-19 Update
The question, as always: will we see the spike?
Will the fact that it was so bad - and so concentrated - in NYC that anything less than that will make us think, "Well, it's not all that terrible; we must be doing something right"?
Will the fact that it was so bad - and so concentrated - in NYC that anything less than that will make us think, "Well, it's not all that terrible; we must be doing something right"?
Today's Today
"I will not change my mind."
--
"Then you will die stupid."
(Dr Who - The Zygon Inversion)
Mike Prysner - 2009
John Kerry - 1971
MLK - timeless
Kill For Peace - The Fugs - 1966
Everlast - 2009
May 24, 2020
Milestone Comin'
100,000 is a threshold number.
(paraphrasing):
About this time tomorrow, we'll pass that threshold.
NYT has done a good job trying to help us visualize the loss.
Scroll down thru the piece and get a sense of what's happening to us - to those around us.
(paraphrasing):
Imagine an American city of a hundred thousand people. A city that was here celebrating New Year's Eve, and has since been wiped clean off the map.
An American Hiroshima.
About this time tomorrow, we'll pass that threshold.
NYT has done a good job trying to help us visualize the loss.
Scroll down thru the piece and get a sense of what's happening to us - to those around us.
As the Degrees Of Separation get narrower - as the disease gets closer to us personally - it should start to become more of a priority.
But let's not kid ourselves about who and what Americans have become. We've made Reality TV and Pro Wrestling the pinnacle of American popular culture. We love "real-life" drama and tragedy. Especially when we can take some of it and rub it all over ourselves in order to attract the attention of a world we generally see as uncaring - because we've made it that way.
How's that for "Irony is dead, part ∞"?
It's like we've nationalized some weird version of Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy - or maybe it's the logical outgrowth of the old OPM - except that instead of gaining unearned benefit from Other People's Money, we can tap into the psychological benefits of Other People's Misery. We can manufacture sympathy and reap the rewards without having to go through any of the real suffering ourselves.
We are a nation of sick fucks.
COVID-19 Update
Usually, there's a pleasant sense of expectation on Memorial Day weekend. We can try to remind ourselves that the day is intended for reflection, and for honoring our dead, but the general feeling is that summer is here and it's time to kick up our heels and celebrate the arrival of good times.
Expectations are a little weird this year.
As millions of Americans have poured into tight spaces in Ocean City MD, and Lake Of The Ozarks, et al, there's a sense more of dread than celebration.
We can hope for it all to work out, but there's no one with a living thinking brain who believes COVID-19 will magically disappear and that we won't see another wave even before the first one subsides because of our complacency.
Expectations are a little weird this year.
As millions of Americans have poured into tight spaces in Ocean City MD, and Lake Of The Ozarks, et al, there's a sense more of dread than celebration.
We can hope for it all to work out, but there's no one with a living thinking brain who believes COVID-19 will magically disappear and that we won't see another wave even before the first one subsides because of our complacency.
As always, hopeful but not optimistic.
May 23, 2020
Today's Tweet
'Scuse me, ma'am - could I borrow your mask for the next 5-7 minutes please?
Quarantine has caused the Karens to lose their minds pic.twitter.com/Jr6fwujEQy— Bryan 🇺🇸 #StayAtHome & #WashYourHands (@swimmerbr78) May 23, 2020
COVID-19 Update
We should top the 100,000 dead Americans mark by Memorial Day, which means - because of course it does - 45* will dispute the numbers.
NYT:
Here’s what you need to know:
Here’s what you need to know:
- White House questions the coronavirus death toll and pushes to reopen churches.
- In Britain, a call to end weekly clapping for health care workers.
- How to have a safe Memorial Day weekend.
- China reported no new coronavirus deaths or symptomatic cases.
- Will the coronavirus kill what’s left of Americans’ faith in Washington?
- German church opens its doors to Muslims amid restrictions on Eid celebrations.
- Antigovernment rally protests Spain’s response to the pandemic.
As the number of United States deaths from the pandemic approaches 100,000, President Trump and members of his administration have been questioning the official coronavirus toll.
Even as most experts say that the numbers are probably an undercount, White House meetings have turned to questioning whether the toll is inflated by the inclusion of people who died while infected by the coronavirus, but of other conditions.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday that he accepted the current death toll but that the figures could be “lower than” the official count, which is now above 95,000. Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, has said that America has taken “a very liberal approach” to what counts as a Covid-19 death.
Most statisticians and public health experts say the death toll is probably far higher than what is publicly known, because early Covid-19 deaths were probably misclassified and people are dying in their homes and in nursing homes without being tested.
Top 20 States
May 22, 2020
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