There was a lot of rain yesterday and last night. The floodplain park near me was closed due to flooding (which is why it’s a park). So after today’s walk I went out my back gate into the nature preserve (it was a golf course 8 years ago) between me and the park to see the flooding there. As I used to say when the area was a golf course at the moment I now have beachfront property. There is enough of a rise between the river and my house that I’m not worried about the yard or house flooding.
Just beyond my back fence is a path wide enough for vehicles, formerly for the grounds crew. Then there is a line of trees. As I came back to this line of trees an especially strong gust of wind came up. The next tree downwind, about 10 feet away, started cracking, then fell over. It didn’t get very far – its branches soon entangled into the next tree in line. It also fell away from me.
Twitter user brandAn is good offers this:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
all the rest have thirty-one
Except March which has 8000
As of this afternoon Michigan has 5500 COVID-19 cases. Half of them are in Wayne County and most of those are in Detroit. Worldwide there are 718K cases and in the US 139K cases with 2,661recovered.
Since the virus spreads exponentially, we could see two million dead within a month. Kos community member sufeitzh created a chart on a logarithmic scale (where instead of increasing 1, 2, 3, the numbers increase, 1, 10, 100) that shows the exponential growth as a straight line (which is why one uses logarithmic scales). At various dates the chart shows the projected dead and an event with a similar number of dead. For example, by April 9 there could be 58K dead, which is similar to the number of Americans who died in Vietnam.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Kos of Kos compares the virus toll in California and New York. California, mostly around the Bay Area, was prompt in imposing stay-at-home orders. New York wasn’t. Soon New York was dealing with about 3,000 cases and the Bay Area had only 400.
Then Kos looked at states that have a stay-at-home order compared to those that don’t. A big worry is Florida, with its elderly population, could be looking at 320,000 deaths in just a few weeks. Stay-at-home orders make a difference.
There was a lot of news about the cruise ship Diamond Princess that became a virus incubator when the whole ship was quarantined and not allowed to dock. That’s not the end of the story. There are at least 10 other cruise ships, with nearly 10,000 passengers that are not allowed to dock. Anywhere.
Dartagnan of the Kos community explores the nasty guy’s actions as a reelection campaign strategy. First, a quote from Charlie Warzel in the New York Times on the nasty guy’s two choices for his campaign.
* He could have done everything possible (started adequate testing immediately, got masks and ventilators to hospitals).
The first path would save millions of jobs, turn Trump into a populist hero for many and perhaps prevent another depression.
* Or he could do what he did:
The second path would court chaos, playing up the partisan divide, deflecting all blame for the coronavirus pandemic onto the media, China and the Obama White House, and praying that it ends up being enough to obscure his administration’s disastrous lack of preparation.He chose the second because it has always worked for him. It is both cruel and misguided from an economic perspective. Dartagnan wrote:
But not from a political perspective. Trump’s actions up to this point bespeak a cold, political calculation, one that Trump clearly believes is viable in these polarized times. The calculation is not particularly complex. It is that the number of Americans who die as a result of his policy will be outweighed by the polarized sentiments of the electorate, come Election Day.
He created targets for his supporters to blame. This is both calling it the “Chinese virus” and blaming Dem governors who aren’t “nice” to him. It also meant the media was talking about his racism and not his negligent virus response.
Because that $2 trillion recovery bill doesn’t do a lot for workers the nasty guy can pretend to side with the workers by blaming Dem governors for the economic fallout of the stay-at-home policies. That’s especially true if those stay-at-home policies actually work in lessening the number of deaths. He could also proclaim his national strategy worked. If the virus doesn’t spread to rural areas he can say Dems overreacted. And those daily briefings, mostly set up to stroke his ego, are also daily campaign events. Dartagnan wrote:
Trump is simply counting on the profoundly hyper-partisan divide in this country to be more significant and powerful than the actual body count caused by his strategy.The problem, though the nasty guy doesn’t see it as one, is that American lives are removed from the equation. Dartagnan again:
Never before has any American president exhibited such wanton, callous disregard for the lives of American citizens.
Members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra did a performance of part of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, each playing from their own home. Technology can be cool! No idea where they hid the choir.
Ann Serling, daughter of Rod Serling, has a Twitter feed. Rod is famous for his work in the early days of television, especially Twilight Zone. A quote from her father:
Human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. This, I submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. It is simply an expression of what I would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity's sake.
That prompted this quote (author not named) in reply:
The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
And just for fun.
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