TrickstaPriest

Best wishes for a problem-free surgery and easy recovery (or as easy as can be hoped)

"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters."

You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

This just in: There were 12 monkeys in that troop . . .

 

I'm sorry.
 
-- 
 
AZ isn't looking great.  The numbers aren't telling the whole picture, that the navajo nation is getting crushed by this, and there are hospitals already over capacity.  Going from 200 to 400 new cases in short order, and keep in mind that's 'new' cases.  It can take upwards of four weeks to discharge someone, so it's not exactly surprising that hospitals are already over capacity.

I wish you the best, Dan.  You are a good person, and I hope things turn out well as they can be.  Us all, we'll be here.

Boy I've fallen behind here. RL Drama am fun. Sorry folks. I'll try to revive it.

This is why science matters. And why I am so very frustrated at the state of my country right now, from our know-nothing know-it-all President down the the plague enthusiasts screaming that having to wear a mask at Costco is a violation of their Constitutional rights.
 
I've recently been rereading Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle In the Dark, and I came across this statement:
 
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
 
We're there, folks.

Also, just to point out again, we haven't reached the first peak yet, so it's a bit early to be talking about what the second peak may look like.

Agreed - 100%...though I will add that those who haven't had it become personal can still be emotionally affected and aware of the scope of the tragedy that's continuing to unfold. I was in that group and am now in the "close to home" group and can somewhat confidently say that they're not too different, just more personal now.  My aunt (this shouldn't matter, but early 70's, special needs, had been living in an assisted care facility) was recently moved to the ICU showing all the (bad) signs of COVID-19. 

This isn't meant to take away from your post -- the majority fall into the category that you describe (not really "getting" it until it hits close to home)...which I find more than a little sad, and more than a little telling of why we're seeing the issues we are in the US.

Sadly, for many, I think it is "a single close friend or family member".  A single death is a tragedy.  A thousand deaths is a statistic.
 
The Premier (think Governor in the US) of Ontario, Doug Ford, has been scathing in his comments on those not observing social distancing and other protocols.  His mother contracted COVID-19 early on.
 
Our Prime Minister has appeared outside his house for a press conference most days of the pandemic, with the steady message that this is serious, and we need to work to contain the spread.  His wife was one of the first locked down after testing positively following her return from an international trip.
 
Intellectually, we know these numbers are scary.  But, at least for many, it hits home with much greater power - emotionally - when it becomes personal.

Which is why America is and will continue to be the epicenter of the pandemic.  America is literally doing as badly as authoritarian regimes like Brazil, Iran, and Russia, or countries that did nothing, like Sweden.  The authorities that could have saved us are instead actively disseminating misinformation and preventing measures that could save lives.  And that gets us back to "despair".

You make a good point, I should have chosen better words. This was an exercise by the entire Democratic Party. The party leadership and aligned media did maintain a constant anti-Sanders message during the primaries, and I don't think we should underestimate the effect that had on perception among Democrats; but Biden has attained the presumptive nomination by lawful process.
 
However, the party isn't the country. AFAICT Biden's main selling point has been that he'll offend the fewest voters. I've seen many political candidates picked for their perceived "electability." Their record of success doesn't fill me with confidence.

The Republican Party's tactics before 2016 certainly laid the groundwork of public alienation and resentment for Trump's ascension. But once he was in office I noticed an interesting trend. The first time Trump crossed a line for what had been acceptable behavior for a POTUS, the Republican grandees threatened consequences. I'm now convinced that wasn't out of principle, but out of fear that the political sky would fall. But Trump crossed the line, and the sky didn't fall, and the grandees backed down. And then he crossed a farther line, and the threat was made, and the sky stayed up, and the grandees backed down. And this happened again, and again, until the grandees decided they didn't need to fear, and stopped their posturing. And now they've enabled and normalized that behavior, and allowed it to be woven into their base of support, to such an extent that even if a Republican has an objection of principle to what the POTUS is doing they don't dare voice it, because any "disloyalty" to Trump will drive their own voters away. The party sold itself to Donald Trump, and now it's too late for caveat emptor.

Let's also not forget that Donald Trump was not the anointed candidate of the Republican Party grandees or their corporate masters. As far as I can see, his was a genuine populist insurgency from the party's base...
 
...Though one could certainly argue -- and I would -- that the Republican Party base's alienation and rage was consciously cultivated for generations by those party leaders and corporate masters. And now they seem quite happy with a president who says openly what was coded in dog-whistle language, and openly attacks the political norms they spent decades undermining.
 
Dean Shomshak

I have said, repeatedly, that cynicism and apathy are the natural enemies of progress.  Because it takes hard work, persistence and a willingness to deal with resistance and setbacks, to achieve real social progress.  And a LOT of optimism!

An example of what I'm talking about: Distance learning. That's been my life for the last 10 weeks. And I hate it. As I've mentioned elsewhere, it takes away the things I love most and leaves me with all the annoying stuff. That's how it affects me.
 
However...it works really well for some of my students. There are some kids who just aren't built to start the day at 7:30 in the morning. (Like pretty much everybody in my first-period classes, it seems.) For those kids, if it works better for them to access the material at a different time, then that's probably what we should do for them.
 
There are other kids, I've learned, who need the structure and just can't function very well in a completely asynchronous environment. For those kids, having class in a traditional classroom during the traditional school day is the better choice.
 
Even with an increased commitment to educational technology, most public schools operate more or less the same way they did in the 1700s. The current crisis has forced us educators to reevaluate what public school should look like. It turns out we don't have to do things the way we've always done them.
 
There's still a huge learning curve ahead of us, and educators are more susceptible than you might think to academic inertia. But we can do it differently, and we might just be able to do it better. If we can do it better, then that's something worth striving for. And I feel that is something good that could come out of this crisis.

I think it's inevitable that we are going to lose some things as a result of all this. The key, I hope, is that will figure out the right things to lose. The things that don't work. The things that are unnecessary and really have no place in a modern civilization, save for cultural inertia.
 
The fact is that things will never be the same after all this. But that can mean one of two things. It can mean things will be worse, or it can mean things will be better. I hope by the time we're done with all this, we will have figured out which is which and chosen accordingly.
 
( Now, without drifting too far into Political thread territory, that outcome is going to depend a lot on how we choose our leaders in the next election.)

You're not wrong. 
 
Having said that, Uncle Ted is a nutcase, IMHO. To quote the MCU, his mind is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him. He came to tour my workplace once, and he was polite and well-spoken, but clearly not digging in the same ditch with the rest of us.
 
To some audiences, I suppose that's a feature rather than a bug.

Sure, but the same argument can be made with regard to other celebs...whether you agree with them or not.

Forget the writer, but there's a really good line:  "We tend to assess the intelligence of a person by how much they agree with us."  Unfortunately far too true.

Thankfully, my Mom wasn't a Fox News viewer.
 
She skewed liberal, and would reach out to her congressman whenever she felt that it was an important topic. Her congressman's staff gave her a direct line to their office, and would even sometimes call her to see what her feelings were on legislation that he was going to vote on. Interestingly, she was registered as a Republican, and they frequently made the mistake of assuming that she would somehow accept their shenanigans. Her congressman ran for governor (of Maine), and she received a push-poll from a group for the Republican candidate that asked her what her feelings would be if it was revealed that her congressman was gay. Her response was, "Honey, I want to elect him. I don't want to date him."
 
 
 

I feel you guys about the haircut.  I'm two haircuts behind and this is the longest my hair has been for thirty years.  I'm making do with hats and, if necessary, gel.  But I've had long hair before and I'll do it again before I go to a salon with no vaccine or treatment available.

I've started raking my hair back with my hands. I'll be up for a pony tail or stylish man bun by end of summer