bluescribbler
bluescribbler's JournalThinking today about a book I read in college
A book which seems strangely appropriate today. The course was titled 19th Century American Literature. We read
Emerson and Thoreau, Dickinson and Poe, Twain and Douglass, but this story was The Confidence Man, by Herman Melville.
Anybody else read that story?
Old Man Fibber
https://www.google.com/search?q=old+man+fibber&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&oq=old+man+fib&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l2j69i61.18826j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8Why does Mass have about 5000 more confirmed cases than California?
I have a theory. California got on the ball quickly and took it very seriously, issuing a statewide stay home lockdown order. Gov
Baker waited and eventually issued a stay home lockdown advisory. By the time Baker took action the virus was already widespread. In addition, the fact that he had issued an advisory, not an order, led some to take it less seriously than they would have otherwise.
'Absolute Clusterf-k': Inside the Denial and Dysfunction of Trump's Coronavirus Task Force
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-coronavirus-covid-white-house-testing-kushner-cdc-dysfunction-red-dawn-982308/?fbclid=IwAR2wxWP1Z1yqrQpXaPFAnR5nOPBSZFsl93EWmJylR5DXzjQk0QZyGMgo2nYOn February 24th, Dr. Duane Caneva, the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, sent an urgent email with the subject line “Red Dawn Breaking Bad” to a small group of doctors, epidemiologists, public-health officials, and pandemic experts. For more than a month, the scientists on the email chain had been tracking a deadly new virus that was ripping its way through Southeast Asia.
The people on the Red Dawn email chain ranged from local health officials in Texas and California to senior-level doctors at the U.S. Army, the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the State Department. Some of them had worked together in the White House in the mid-2000s. They had helped write President Bush’s 2007 national strategic plan for a flu pandemic and had advised President Obama on his response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. (The Red Dawn title was an inside joke referring to the 1984 B movie in which the Soviet Union invades America.)
By late February, the sense of alarm in the emails was palpable, as new coronavirus cases were reported in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Italy. One of the White House veterans on the chain was a pandemic expert named Dr. Carter Mecher, who is now a senior adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Mecher got into the habit of waking up at 4:30 a.m. and combing the internet for data to help him understand this new virus and what might happen if it made it to America.
One day, he discovered a field report by Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases about the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in Yokohama, which had suffered one of the first major coronavirus outbreaks. Mecher used the field report’s numbers to make a rough projection about how a severe pandemic might play out in the U.S., and he immediately shared it with his colleagues on the Red Dawn chain: By his calculation, if 30 percent of the American population were to get the new coronavirus, more than 1.7 million could die from it.
More at link above
A Bad Law is a Bad Law
https://www.democracydocket.com/2020/03/a-bad-law-is-a-bad-law/#more-4093A Bad Law is a Bad Law
By Marc Elias on March 9, 2020
The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest so rare and insignificant…that in large sense, one would say there is no pure originality…Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment.”
This observation is as true in law as it is in literature or philosophy. In the area of voting rights, all too often public outrage and our collective resources focus on the latest law aimed at making voting harder while overlooking the similarly restrictive law that has been on the books, in plain view, for years or even decades. Not all bad voting laws are new. Sometimes a suppressive or unfair law remains in place because no one focused on its implication for the rights of voters. And, more often than not, a newly enacted suppressive law copies existing precedent in another state.
Take, for example, laws restricting the collection of completed mail ballots by third-party get out the vote
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A Bad Law is a Bad Law
By Marc Elias on March 9, 2020
The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest so rare and insignificant…that in large sense, one would say there is no pure originality…Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment.”
This observation is as true in law as it is in literature or philosophy. In the area of voting rights, all too often public outrage and our collective resources focus on the latest law aimed at making voting harder while overlooking the similarly restrictive law that has been on the books, in plain view, for years or even decades. Not all bad voting laws are new. Sometimes a suppressive or unfair law remains in place because no one focused on its implication for the rights of voters. And, more often than not, a newly enacted suppressive law copies existing precedent in another state.
Take, for example, laws restricting the collection of completed mail ballots by third-party get out the vote drives. In Arizona, many African American, Hispanic and Native American communities relied on third-party ballot collection to ensure that their ballots were delivered on time and their votes counted. In 2016–in an effort to gain partisan advantage–the Arizona legislature passed a ban on ballot collection that was intentionally aimed at decreasing electoral participation by minorities. This new Arizona law drew rightful condemnation from voting rights groups and advocates, and ultimately led to a lawsuit that struck down the law as a violation of the Voting Rights Act and U.S. Constitution.
Read the whole article at the link
Memo to New Yorkers
Also to People from New Jersey and Connecticut. 
Berkshire County, MA is not your playground! People live and work here. The hospitals here are overloaded. Governor Baker has implored you to stay home, yet still you come. Yesterday I watched a few cars drive by the home. I admit that this is not a statistically significant sample, but I feel that is illustrative. Out of 11 cars, 1 had CT plates, 2 had MA plates. The rest had NY plates. You're cleaning out the grocery stores of things the residents need to survive. I get it. I really do. You want to escape the hotbed of disease that is New York City. But, do you ever think that maybe you are bringing the disease to the people who live here? Given that we know that you could have the virus for as many as 14 days without symptoms and be contagious, you could be infecting the very people who cannot shelter in place or work from home. Please, please stay home. If you must come here, please bring enough food and other supplies so that you can self quarantine for at minimum 14 days. Self quarantine means do not leave the house, condo, Air Bnb where you choose to stay. Do not go to the store. Do not go out for a walk. do not hop on your bike for a spin around town. Do not take your kayak out on the river, pond or lake. Regardless of how healthy you feel, you may be infected and you may infect others. I repeat, Berkshire County is not your playground!
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Gender: MaleHometown: Massachusetts
Home country: USA
Current location: Massachusetts
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 2,127
