Thought for the day:

Many people think old age is a disease, something to be thwarted if possible. But someone has said that if any period is a disease, it is youth; age is recovering from it.

T. C. Myers

Trump's campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places

You're Not Supposed to Understand the Rumors About Biden

On Tuesday, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham broke some news: An “investigative journalist” named Matthew Tyrmand had uncovered a cache of 26,000 emails belonging to Hunter Biden’s disgraced business partner Bevan Cooney, who is now in jail. Tyrmand claimed that he had gotten hold of the emails via a person in the same facility as Cooney (a “federal work camp for white-collar infractions,” is how Tyrmand put it). Tyrmand explained that Cooney felt stiffed by Biden, the son of the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, and implied that Cooney had handed over his own Gmail password in an act of revenge.

Perhaps that’s what happened. Or perhaps not: I have good reason to doubt the reliability of the source. The last time I saw Tyrmand was in October 2017. I was speaking at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and he was in the audience. Security guards were keeping an eye on him after I warned them that he might show up: He’d come to another public lecture of mine the previous day in New York City, then had turned up in Boston and announced on Twitter that he was following me to Cambridge. His goal, I think, was to shout at me and draw attention to himself while waving a cellphone camera in the air, which is what he’d done in the past. But the lecture went off smoothly; afterward, a very gentle and very tall Harvard professor stood firmly between us, engaging Tyrmand in vigorous conversation so that I could slip away unharassed. I didn’t hear directly from Tyrmand after that—I block the social-media accounts of tiresome trolls. But I gather that, year in and year out, he continues to post obsessively about me and my husband, a Polish politician, including photographs taken surreptitiously in public places. I have no idea why.

A clue might come from a 2016 New Yorker story in which Tyrmand (who is described as an “investor,” not a journalist) plays a minor role in a ludicrously clumsy attempt to run a sting operation on the Open Society Foundations, which are funded by the prodemocracy philanthropist George Soros. The deception failed, according to The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, because James O’Keefe, the notoriously unprincipled leader of a group called Project Veritas, forgot to hang up the phone after calling the Open Society office. In a long voicemail, he inadvertently recorded himself plotting to embarrass Soros. These are people who think that smear campaigns are politics, harassment is journalism, and online stalking is something you do for fun.

For those trying to follow along at home, the emails produced by Tyrmand are not the same emails that originally appeared on a laptop that Hunter Biden supposedly left at a Delaware computer-repair shop, the laptop that then became a story in the New York Post (and whose contents, according to a report in Time, were circulating previously in Ukraine). This is a different cache, one that is even more tangential to the U.S. presidential campaign and even harder to understand. In order to even make sense of the messages’ content, the reader must learn the backstories of a whole new cast of characters, not just Cooney but two other convicted fraudsters named Devon Archer and Jason Galanis; the wife of the former mayor of Moscow, Yelena Baturina; and Chris Heinz, John Kerry’s stepson, who broke away from the group; as well as their relationships, their jokes (they refer to Baturina as the “USSR woman’s shot put champion”), and the rules of the ugly world they inhabit. In order to link them to Joe Biden, you have to turn somersaults, do triple flips, and squint very hard.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/smears-against-biden-dont-need-make-any-sense/616824/

You sometimes have to wonder if people are serious or pulling your leg.

A powerful argument for wearing a mask, in visual form

Real-time pandemic data paints a vivid picture of the relationship between mask-wearing and the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms

Despite the clear opposition to masks within the Trump White House and among its allies, Americans of all political stripes overwhelmingly support their use as a public health measure and say they wear them whenever they’re in public.

Still, there are significant differences in mask-use rates at the state level. And data from Carnegie Mellon’s CovidCast, an academic project tracking real-time coronavirus statistics, yields a particularly vivid illustration of how mask usage influences the prevalence of covid-19 symptoms in a given area. Take a look.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/23/pandemic-data-chart-masks/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2c4b72b%2F5f92fd6e9d2fda0efb521285%2F596a8c3bae7e8a0ef33f7ede%2F8%2F71%2F46912e2674b582c361fed6ee1fdd8aa3

Trump's health care plan.

Food for thought.

Just checked the status of my mail in ballot. Received and accepted!

🗳 Yay! 🗳

And now, a message from Mel Brooks.

If Your Idea of America Doesn't Include Everyone, Don't Bother Thanking Me For My Service

If you're an American, and whether you've had the distinct honor to serve in uniform or not, it's likely you've heard that phrase, "thank you for your service." Of course, if you're on the receiving end like myself, and the less then 8 percent of living Americans who've served in uniform, it's usually a pretty good feeling! Who doesn't like be thanked?

And lucky for me, the "thank you for your service" doesn't just stop at individual people. I feel like sort of what you call a semi-superstar—it's all over the place. Businesses, various other institutions, politicians, media, you take your pick—"thank you for your service" is "the thing." Just google "free meals on veterans day" this week and you'll find dozens of restaurants offering veterans free meals as long as you have your military ID to prove it. Who doesn't love that!

But as I reflect on the rapidly deteriorating and divisive state of our nation, and the continued hate-infused rhetoric towards those who follow a faith like mine, perhaps don't look a certain way—or, say, the latest swipe towards a decorated war veteran, LtCol Alexander Vindman with over 20 years of honorable service to this Nation and a Purple Heart, smeared because he happened to be born in the Ukraine—I really can't help but question the genuineness of the whole "thank you for your service." Is it all just a bunch of talk? Something to say because it just sounds nice?

It really got me thinking. What does it actually mean to my fellow Americans when they thank me for my service? Some Americans don't even see me as American enough, let alone validate my military service, because of the way I look and the Islamic faith I keep near and dear to my heart.

https://www.newsweek.com/veterans-day-thank-you-service-inclusion-america-all-1471010