Why are gravediggers working around the clock?

Today was a day when I wanted to whine, “Mommy, I’m bored!” A big reason was that snow fell all day (until just after supper). It was too cold to work in the garage. With falling snow I didn’t want to stand outside stores while they limited the number of people who could enter. As for my perennial projects – scanning Dad’s slides, genealogy, and composing – after about an hour of each I didn’t want to do that anymore. I did spend an hour on the exercise bike, but beyond that I walked from the desk in the living room to the kitchen and back.

Even with that want to whine I’m not sick, I’m not broke, I’m not homeless. Boring is OK.



While Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recovering from a case of COVID-19, the temporary PM Dominic Raab issued guidelines on how Britain might reopen. Make sure the health system won’t be overloaded. Demonstrate the decline in cases is sustained. Broad testing that shows declining cases. Protective gear is available. Opening up won’t cause a second wave. Pretty good, science based plan.

The nasty guy also issued a plan. It sounds good. But Mark Sumner of Kos says it’s a list of nice things to have, but no actual plan.

Unsurprisingly, what Trump actually provided was more of a campaign platform than a plan for the nation. Going forward, Trump can always talk about how “my plan calls for...” (insert something great here) while those pitiful governors are just not getting it done. So vote out those governors and replace them with someone who will deliver Trump’s plan! And just because Trump backed off his threats to punish states that weren’t following his cues on Thursday, doesn’t mean the threats won’t be back on Friday.

Translation: If things improve the nasty guy gets the credit. If things don’t the governors get the blame.



Still reluctant to vote for a woman for higher office? Laura Clawson of Kos brings us a few women leaders who are doing a great job dealing with the virus. They are Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Angela Merkel of Germany, Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, and Katrin Jakobsdóttir of Iceland. Clawson warns that the sample size is way to small for us to say women leaders are better.

Also too small is the sample size of authoritarian men who are the worst at dealing with the virus. Though Mark Sumner gives a convincing rundown. The nasty guy is at the top of the list. Also setting their countries up for a great deal of pain and grief are Putin of Russia, Bolsonaro of Brazil, and Boris Johnson of Britain (that plan above about how to reopen probably didn’t get Johnson’s approval). Lower down on the list are Lukashenko of Belarus, Netanyahu of Israel, Erdogan of Turkey, and Löfven of Sweden (Sweden?!).

A special mention goes to Orban of Hungary, who used the virus disaster to convince Parliament to give him unlimited power, then promptly said: Virus? What virus?

All of these men have been making sure tests for the virus aren’t being done (certainly not enough) or lying about the number of confirmed cases, or both. Sumner says the first casualty in bad leadership is human lives. The second is democracy.

Some of those numbers out of the just-named countries, when compared against democracies, show that democracies aren’t doing well. That prompted Bakhti Nishanov to tweet:

Authoritarian governments with no accountability and transparency enforcement mechanisms routinely falsify their economic data. It's a fact. They are more than likely also falsifying their COVID numbers. So please stop the "democracies have failed in fighting COVID" arguments.

If your only argument for why you think a dictatorship X is doing better in fighting COVID than a democracy Y are the X's COVID numbers, you have lost that debate even before starting it.

Sumner discusses Brazil in more detail here. If their numbers are so low why are gravediggers working around the clock?



A bunch of conservatives were upset that California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered stimulus check to undocumented workers. So they started tweeting with the hashtag #RecallGavinNewson. It didn’t go well. It prompted tweets like this one from Hysterical Raisins:

You don't have to remind me to recall Gavin Newsom. I recall him very well. He's that smart and handsome governor who kept the California death toll much lower than expected.

Big surprise (not). Joan McCarter of Kos reports that the small business loan money in the last stimulus package has already been spent and most of it went to red states. Nebraska got nearly 75% of loans requested. California got 24% and New York got 23%. So, yeah, the Dems should keep up the pressure to not just dump another quarter trillion into that program.


McCarter also reports the money in the Paycheck Protection Program didn’t go to just small businesses as it was supposed to. Some not small companies were faster with the application process because they have the accountants and lawyers on staff and already have relationships with the banks administering the program.




From the Kos Cheers and Jeers Friday collection of late night snark:

The federal government's big idea for obtaining critical medical supplies is to find out when states are buying stuff and then go take it. When the president says 'I'm behind you on this, governors,' he means it like in the form of a stickup.
—Rachel Maddow

Kevin Mitchell Mercer is a history professor. He tweeted:

I asked my students (for extra credit) to select one COVID-19 artifact that they would suggest to a historian 100 years from now for an exhibit. The results are moving and heartbreaking. The only rule was they couldn't say anything medical since that would be easy (masks etc).

The students proposed such things as half-empty course notebooks, a glass door to see loved ones without infecting them, and items left behind in dorm rooms.

The response to the tweet was mostly from other history professors saying it was a wonderful idea. And even the Washington Post wrote about it.