Here’s the biggest bush with another bush behind it.
And here’s the same big bush seen from the kitchen window last Friday.
I did very little work in the garage today, it was too cold and windy. Tomorrow is forecast to be cold as well. Thursday should be warmer, above 50F.
The Sunday newspaper has a chart of daily temperatures for the previous eight days and the forecast of the next seven. Included in the chart are lines for average highs and lows. From that it looks like if I’m going to wait until the minimum temperature for the day stays above 55F before I apply any drywall mud I may wait another 3-4 weeks. It’s only April. And this is Michigan. Where it sometimes snows in May.
On to the news of the day.
The nasty guy is enacting another ban on immigration. Either he’s using the virus as a cover while enacting more immigration restrictions or he’s using these restrictions and the related us v. them mentality to distract us from how badly he’s handling the virus. I’ve heard both.
David Lilienfeld wrote that death is the most severe outcome of the virus, but it isn’t the only serious one. Damaged lungs can take 15-20 years to heal. There could also be joint inflammation and liver damage. Some people report the loss of taste and smell. That is likely not the only neurological damage. So kids who are affected may be affected for a really long time.
Robert Garcia, Mayor of Long Beach tweeted a chart comparing the deaths per million people of COVID-19 with flu, car crashes, heart disease, and cancer. COVID-19 just beat them all to become the greatest cause of death in America.
Matt Stieb of New York Magazine comments that the nasty guy wants to reopen the country but the GOP doesn’t want to pay for the testing that would allow reopening to happen. It’s all about their effort to keep government small (and small government means it can’t protect the little guy from the big guy).
Some GOP lawmakers argue that private companies can find innovative solutions to testing and the federal government can’t. Sure let them innovate, but the money has to come from somewhere and the only place that can is the federal government. And while those companies innovate – and pull in a profit at taxpayer expense – the feds need to keep the testing programs going.
Then they said previous relief packages already had money for spending. Let’s see the results of that before spending more. So what “results” are you looking for? A flattening of the number of cases that can’t happen because there isn’t enough testing? And how many people will you allow to die while waiting for “results” that please you?
Sheesh.
I’ve commented before that the GOP is no longer (if they ever had been) the party of life they claim to be and used to accuse the Dems of not being. Kos of Daily Koso gives several examples:
Bill O’Reilly said: “Many people who are dying, both here and around the world, were on their last legs anyway.” Skylar Herbert has become the youngest, at age 5, to die from COVID-19 in Michigan. Was she on her last legs?
Dr. Oz said that opening schools now would only cost us 2 to 3% in total mortality. Kos reminds us that 2-3% of the US population is 6.6 to 9.8 million.
Candace Owens grumbled that the 2009 swine flu infected 1.4 billion and killed 575,000 and there was no media panic. A month later we see COVID-19 transmits much more easily and is 175 times more deadly.
Kos wrote:
One party is getting people killed by the tens of thousands; the other is desperately trying to save everyone’s lives. Because, believe it or not, death is now a partisan issue, as Republicans make common cause with a deadly pathogen ravaging our population.Kos includes a tweet from Bill Marx, running for Congress in Pennsylvania:
I mean you have to admit it's hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans & ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can't go to the cheesecake factory.Kos concludes:
Skylar Herbert, 5, died because Donald Trump didn’t prepare for a crisis everyone (including his own government) saw coming when it was still months away. Unfortunately for her, she was already born, and that means conservatives don’t need to pretend to care about her life anymore.
After describing incidents where the nasty guy and his minions prevent hospitals from getting masks and gowns Joan McCarter of Kos asks, “When do we call it treason?”
With so much less travel and industry belching out pollutants the air is noticeably clearer. Others have noted less smog in Los Angeles. Now the residents of Jalandhar, India can see the Himalayas, which hasn’t been possible in decades. Leah McElrath notes that happened after only one month. We really can save the planet. It’s not too late.
Axios reported (with pictures):
Approximately 2,000 Israelis stood six feet apart in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to protest what they consider the erosion of democracy under the coronavirus-era government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
I’ve written that the protests against the stay at home orders are funded by conservative organizations. Just like the Tea Party was a decade ago. Leah Greenberg tweeted:
Friendly reminders:I add: and every fight about the scope and role of the government is a fight about how much the government should protect and help the little guy from the predations of the big guy.
1. The Tea Party was a white backlash movement
2. Every fight about the deficit is actually a proxy fight about the scope and role of government in our society
3. Rs will rediscover their deep concerns about the deficit exactly 24 hours after Ds beat Trump
The wealthy like to talk about allowing the poor do this or that as a moral hazard. Something about letting them do it they’ll keep doing it. Abigail Disney, yes the privileged granddaughter of that Disney though she is aware of her privilege, tweeted a long thread about the real moral hazard. Here are excerpts:
The problem with extreme wealth inequality was never just about how bad life had become for those at the bottom of the pyramid, although that is the problem of priority for sure. But the shadow problem is the moral hazard that wealth represents to the people who have it and the moral hazard those people, with all their access to power and limited ability to see other human beings with less as their own equals, present in a democratic society. Because if you really are incapable of understanding why no one is too good to scrub a toilet, how can you possibly not, as Steve Mnuchin did last week, sit on live television and talk about how families can subsist on 1,200 dollars for ten weeks no problem. He clearly hasn't asked someone in that position what their reality is. Because why would he?
…
This is all the long way around to saying that our inequality is socially, spiritually and morally corrosive to everyone involved. Obviously it is difficult for those not blessed with ample resources and even if not resources, head starts like education and race and geography that will all eventually add up to resources unless you are too stupid and self destructive to play your cards right. More, it is morally corrosive to the people that seem to be the lucky ones. Because at a certain point money makes you stupid and it makes you mean and it disables your capacity to fully and completely empathize with people who are dealing with less than you are. It just does. And that is the real reason that wealthy people are so often politically conservative. Yes they intend to protect advantages, that's part of it for sure. But deep down they don't believe the people with less can really be trusted with the important decisions.
…
The corollary to believing you deserve advantages you have not earned or have only partially earned is believing that those who do not share your advantages somehow deserve the worse fate. Only with the a radical practice of solidarity can any of this change. People who are raised in wealth need to break this hypnotic cycle. They need to ask hard questions about their resources, not just slouch into them like big comfy couches. The more you have the more you better work. The more you are flattered the harder you must resist. The more you see a gulf between you and others, the more adamantly you must defy it. The world will not change until America lives up to its egalitarian promise that everyone should have a fair start, that no one should be left behind, that we are all connected in our fates, and that we left dynasties behind when we got on the Mayflower and must fight them wherever they sneak back into this lovely garden, with law, with attitudes, with social norms, with media, with every damn tool in our toolbox.
Oliver Willis tweeted that he will give titles to news stories as they would read in a liberal tabloid. Examples (which I think are more accurate than many):
Top Docs Warn America: Test Or DieA few more are here. They include the phrase “Son of a Mitch!”
subhead: Experts Prove Trump's Kooky Reopen Plan A Recipe For Disaster
Mad Don Pushes China Virus Conspiracy ... While Bodies Pile Up Behind Him
Wall Street Fat Cats Bankroll Desperate Campaign vs AOC
Right Wing Virus Zombies Follow Don’s Orders, Endanger Kids
Hero Gov Won't Let GOP's Virus Goons Stop Her From Saving Families
Trump Pooch Mnuch Takes The Fall For Mad Don's Virus Check Scheme
The wonderful Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen has another idea. They will pay as many as 400 small restaurants across the US to reopen and prepare hundreds of meals daily for a total of one million meals for families in need. They can rehire staff to make it happen. WCK will then handle logistics to deliver the meals.
Need to stay isolated and still need exercise? Try rooftop tennis – as in the two players are each on separate roofs on the opposite sides of the street. Here’s an example from Finale, Italy.
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