Today's Navel-Gazer

...except that the argument here is that navel-gazing don't feed no bulldog.

Hannah Arendt and the Post-Enlightenment.

We're stuck in a perpetual loop between labor and work (two different things according to Arendt), and all the value of participation in the real world around us feels like it's missing - like we're missing out on something...it's all kinda pixilated...the way Facebook gives us pixilated "friends" who aren't quite the real thing...pixilated expressions of approval that mean less than a real thumbs-up...it gives us a world where we're all cogs in an economic machine rather than real people active in our communities.

A COVID-19 Reminder

When I say "the curve seems to be flattening a little", that's not our cue to get happy and start thinking 45* might be right about opening everything up again by Easter.

We're still in the hair-on-fire-holy-fuck-this-just-gets-worse part.

The inflection point is a right good bit down the road yet.

COVID-19 Update

In the US, the growth is on track with the 1.2 daily multiplier currently in effect.

Globally, it's flattened a bit at about 1.1 

As China gets the pollution machinery rolling again.

Comparison:

A Poem

From a Twitterer called @HellBentVet

As the blood was drying 

On the hands of the few 

Who could have stopped him 

The fat orange demon laughed 

At their utter destruction 

Their blind love-drunk faith 

His greedy claws clutched the bank codes 

Of their billions 

And flew the family 

To their new old home In Saudi Arabia

Today's Tweet

Some Tweets age pretty well.

Just imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. We can’t afford that kind of risk.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 8, 2016

COVID-19 Update

The good news is that the curve is starting to flatten out a little.

The rate of new confirmed cases is doubling about every 3 days now, instead of every 2 days.

That's not a great indicator of great progress though - we're still in the Hockey Stick part of the curve.

The bad news is that we've still got (mostly) GOP assholes telling people to worry about the stock market instead of dead Americans.

Failing

Brian Tyler Cohen

Seth Meyers

It was January 18th before Alex Azar finally got a call thru to 45*, trying to get him up to speed on COVID-19, and Trump interrupted him to ask when flavored vapes would go back on the market.

We Are Not So Smart

President Stoopid says it, and some dumbass takes it as gospel, and just has to give it a try.

Phoenix New Times

An Arizona man died after he and his wife ingested a chemical in an attempt to prevent a coronavirus infection, Banner Health said in a press release. His wife is in critical care. Both are in their 60s.

The chemical — chloroquine phosphate — is commonly used to clean fish tanks.

During a press conference on Thursday, President Donald Trump touted chloroquine as showing "very, very encouraging early results" in treating COVID-19 and falsely stated that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was working "to be able to make that drug available almost immediately." The drug has been used to treat malaria.

Minutes after Trump made the false claim, FDA Commissioner Steven Hahn said a "clinical trial, a large, pragmatic clinical trial" would be required before making any determination on the use of chloroquine to treat the coronavirus.

In its press release, Banner Health advised against "the use of inappropriate medications and household products to prevent or treat COVID-19."

“Given the uncertainty around COVID-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” said Dr. Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director. “The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”
I got into a little Twitter Spat yesterday with a guy trying to make the point that "the red tape is keeping us from finding new ways to beat this thing..." and (of course) "the government just needs to get out of the way".

I don't know what it'll take to break this logjam of deliberate wishful foolishness. Even when it's been made clear that the guy in charge is a complete fuckin' idiot, people are storming around in response to every little piece of shit that falls out of his mouth and floats by them on the internet.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

It's OK To Be Smart

The spread of COVID-19 in the US is doing almost exactly what real people have been telling us it would.

It's doubling about every 2 days here in the US, even as the global increase seems to be slowing a little.

Quarterly Report

So, they asked me how 2020 was going for me so far...