2020
Aaron E. Carroll at The New York Times: “I’m a Doctor. If I Drop Food on the Kitchen Floor, I Still Eat It.” If the dog doesn’t get to it first.
Who’s Right About The Economy? Wall Street Or Silicon Valley?
Brian McCullough, host of Techmeme ride home, talks with TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm.
My $0.02: Wall Street is expecting they’ll be getting fat at the trough of that sweet, sweet government bailout money. Silicon Valley is seeing reality
Remdisivir, a drug that shows promising signs as a potential treatment for COVID-19, was developed using public funds. But Gilead, a pharma company, stands to profit big.
Republicans were right to warn about welfare kings and queens “driving Cadillacs and getting fat on government pork.” These moochers are the wealthy, big-business donors to both Republicans and Democrats.
Gilead, the remdesivir welfare queens [Cory Doctorow/Pluralistic]
“80% of the stimulus tax break will go to 43,000 people” [Cory Doctorow/Pluralistic]
And the morgues.
[NextDraft by Dave Pell]
Sweet Farm, in Half Moon Bay, CA, will let you add a live goat cam to your next virtual meeting. The service is called Goat 2 Meeting. (Via Mike’s List. Thanks, Mike!)
I’m trying to remember when I last had a day off work, and I can’t recall. Weekend before lockdown when I went out to brunch with Julie, maybe? That was more than a month ago.
I’m not working ALL the time. I take a few hours off every day. Indeed, I am actually not currently working very hard at all, though that needs to end very soon and I need to get back to working hard again. Because money.
Still, I do work every day, some more and some less. Every day. And my schedule is unhinged. Like Billy Pilgrim or Doctor Who, I have become unstuck in time. Last night after 10 pm I caught up on email and worked on organizing my to-do list. Not something I would normally do on a Saturday night.
Yesterday was Saturday, right? And that means today is Sunday? [Checking phone] Yes, that’s right.
What does a day off look like anyway, when you work from a home office, most of your work and play both involves staring at screens, and – this is the key part – YOU CAN’T GO ANYWHERE.
I asked Julie and she said: Clean house. We usually have a service come in and do that but of course they’re not coming now and the house is getting pretty colorful.
So I guess that’s what I’m doing. As a self-employed person I can schedule my “weekend” whenever it makes the most sense. So I guess sometime in the next few days I’m taking the day off and helping clean house. Um, yay?
Tell-Tale Tongue, Holloways Brand Pills, 1956 via
Is the Virus on My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper? - Tara Parker-Pope on The New York Times
Staying safe when you come in from the big world.
tl;dr: If you’re not leaving the house much, and not coming in contact with infected people, then social distancing, mask wearing and handwashing should be fine. And even mask-wearing is unnecessary if you stay outdoors and can keep your distance.
Julie and I do not wear masks on our daily walks. We live in a quiet suburb, and it’s easy to keep 20 or more feet away from anyone we encounter.
An Austin school district deployed 110 buses equipped with Wi-Fi to neighborhoods and apartments where home Internet is least likely. The idea is the bus parks near students' homes - Andy Jechow on KUT90.5
I’ve done something counterintuitive to ease news anxiety: Turned on news notifications on my phone.
Yes, on.
If the news notifications look like the usual baloney, then I know there’s no crisis requiring my immediate attention.
I used the same principle immediately post-9/11 with the technology available at that time. I had my clock radio tuned to wake me up with news radio. If the first words I heard were “Michael Jackson,” I knew there was no reason for me to rush to look at headlines.
Caleb, a young man whose life is going nowhere, finds escape and purpose on YouTube. First of a new podcast series by The New York Times.
One: Wonderland - Rabbit Hole
The podcast producers are nonspecific about where Caleb’s story ends, but it seems to be far-right extremism. Shocking because he seems like a pleasant young man. And Caleb even supported Obama. Not in a deep or informed way, but Caleb thought Obama seemed like a good guy, and that it spoke well for the US to have an African-American President.
I see my past self in Caleb.
“Rabbit Hole,” a narrative audio series with tech columnist Kevin Roose, explores what happens when our lives move online.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interviews from quarantine with the New York Times Daily podcast and discusses why she voted against the pandemic bailout bill – because it devotes hundreds of billions of dollars to propping up share prices for megacorporations who don’t need it, and not enough to struggling people, who do.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressivism and the Pandemic
She uses the phrase “rugged capitalism for the poor and unfettered socialism for the rich,” which she attributes, possibly incorrectly, to Martin Luther King.
AOC’s primary subject is the future of progressivism and the Democratic Party after Sanders dropped out of the Presidential race. She sees support for Biden as minimizing harm rather than necessarily doing good, but is prepared for a better outcome (same for me).
She also discusses the difficult task progressives face – Democrats need affluent middle-class suburban white votes to win elections, but those voters are often put off by the progressive agenda.
Nearly a half century after the OPEC oil embargo almost brought the US to its knees, we’re now the worlds largest oil producer rather than consumer, and Trump is trying to jack up oil prices.
That’s normally Presidential suicide, but Trump is trying to protect the US oil industry.
Oil be back - Donald Trump’s big bet - Checks and Balances
A wise economic strategy for the US would have to carefully balance protecting the oil industry while encouraging clean energy production, such as solar. But Trump doesn’t do subtle – his only move is smashing things with a hammer and grabbing gold and power for himself and his cronies.
In this prophetic science fiction story from 2015, a cooking blogger keeps up a cheerful attitude and makes do while self-quarantining with her family during a global pandemic. Excellent story and a fast read: “So Much Cooking,", by Naomi Kritzer on Clarkesworld.
And from a few days ago, Kritzer follows up: “Didn’t I Write This Story Already? When Your Fictional Pandemic Becomes Reality. Some interesting discussion by Kritzer about the themes she explores in the story, how fans and friends are reacting today, what the author got right and wrong about the pandemic, and how the fictional characters' quarantine struggles maps to reality.
Inspired by “So Much Cooking,” on my next grocery run, I’m going to go out and buy a couple of vacuum-sealed cans of Maxwell House or Chock Full o' Nuts coffee. Just in case the good stuff gets hard to find.
I’m also going to think about what more I can be doing to help neighbors and the community. Confession: So far, not much.
Thanks, Cory.
Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic: The health insurance industry is thriving during the pandemic. With Sanders and Warren out of the race, the companies are freely gouging patients and spending on stock buybacks without fear of Medicare for All.
Meanwhile, doctors are getting pay cuts.
Carnival kept sending out cruise ships while knowing it was risky. And the chairman of Carnival is on Trump’s back-to-work council. Rearranging dreck chairs - David Pell on Nextdraft