Faith in the Church of Shutdown not shaken by weight gain

by philg

A Boston friend who is about 60 years old recently shared that the 50+ shutdown orders from the Maskachusetts governor had resulted in the loss of her fitness habits, a cessation in her gym visits, a substantial weight gain, and a general feeling of poor health. The shutdown that protected her from Covid-19, in other words, has rendered her far more vulnerable to Covid-19 than she ever was previously (see “Extra Pounds May Raise Risk of Severe Covid-19” (NYT, October 10, filed under “belaboring the obvious”).

Had this weakened her faith in the Church of Shutdown and made her think that we can’t prevent deaths, but only shift them from the elderly to the non-elderly? (see “The COVID-19 shutdown will cost Americans millions of years of life” for a partial calculation of how Americans will die prematurely over the coming years)

No!

She still believed in the religion for herself and others. I related to her the complaint of a 35-year-old helicopter instrument student that the shutdown was orchestrated by married people home in their big houses with their kids. “What about people like me,” he asked, “who still want to find someone to have children with? My social and dating lives were destroyed by the lockdown. Then, just as soon as things started to open a bit, I had to work 15 extra hours per week and go on the night shift because so many guys were home collecting their $600 per week and wouldn’t come back.” (I refrained from sharing that he might want to consider moving away from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts family law if his goal is to have children and remain part of their lives after the mom decided she needs to have sex with some new friends while hanging onto his paycheck.) Her response was simply to deny that the 35-year-old had suffered a loss. She imagined herself better situated to evaluate the impact of the shutdown on his life than he himself was.

She has some opportunities to observe high-school and college-age residents of the Boston area. As far as she can tell, they are not heeding directives to maintain social distance, wear masks when together, etc. As long as there is this substantial segment of the population ignoring most of the orders, doesn’t that mean that the plague will eventually spread widely, even if the orders could have worked in a more efficient police state? Apparently not!

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Who has watched Hamilton more than once on Disney+?

by philg

Michelle Obama on Hamilton: “it was simply, as I tell everybody, the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.” The proletariat seemed to agree with her, happily shelling out a month of income for a family night at the (sold-out-at-$1000+/seat) theater.

The musical has been out for months now on Disney+. Who has taken the trouble to press the “Play” button more than once? Or knows someone who has watched the musical more than once on Disney+?

I ultimately failed to persuade even a single friend to come over and watch this. Visiting a friend’s vacation house for roughly 7 nights this summer, I could not persuade anyone there to watch it with me.

[The same people were happy to gather, perhaps contrary to a subset of our governor’s 50+ orders, for other movies, shows, games, and activities.]

I am having difficulty understanding how something that was so valuable to people in the theater is essentially worthless on TV. Part of this, I guess, is that sticking a camera in the back of a theatrical production has seldom been a hugely successful technique for making a good movie. On the other hand, that’s what the Metropolitan Opera did before they were shut down for coronapanic and the results were successful with millions of viewers on PBS and at least hundreds of thousands in theaters.

Also, what’s our verdict on the show? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any painting in the Metropolitan Museum, Louvre, or National Gallery (I think we can assume she has been to these places)? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any work by Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, or Mozart? Who agrees with Michelle Obama that this is better than any work misattributed to Shakespeare?

Related:

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Maskachusetts must ban its own residents from Maskachusetts

by philg

One of our governor’s 50+ orders is banning likely-to-be-plagued visitors from other states from visiting Massachusetts (#3 among states ranked by Covid-19 death rate) unless these unclean individuals go through a 14-day ritual purification and/or receive the sacrament of false negatives (a PCR test on the asymptomatic).

As of yesterday, however, it seems that Massachusetts itself would be a “hot zone” state and visitors from Massachusetts would therefore have to be quarantined before mingling with the righteous locals… here in Massachusetts (Boston Herald).

Related:

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Do we need some more national parks?

by philg

A friend who has been suffering through shutdown on an oceanfront estate in Maine mentioned that Acadia National Park has experienced record-breaking visitor counts. For the first time in history, you need to make a reservation before driving into the park at all.

Our National Park system was set up in 1872, i.e., for a country with a population of roughly 40 million. Today there are 330 million residents of the U.S. (or 350 million maybe?). Mobility, even in coronashutdown, is greater than it was in 1872. This leads to what I would have previously called “Manhattan-style crowding” in some parks (but now Manhattan has been de-crowded!).

Having the Federal government run stuff is not ideal, as evidenced by the filthy and decrepit bathrooms that are provided for visitors to Acadia. On the other hand, of all U.S. government functions, the National Park system seems like the best value for the dollar.

Why not see if we can create some additional National Parks or at least National Forests with much better visitor facilities and cut out the logging?Demolish some ugly condo buildings before climate change can get them and create additional National Seashores?

If so, where should the new parks be? My semi-local ideas…

  • Lake Champlain (Vermont/New York)
  • Chappaquiddick Island (“The Ted Kennedy National Seashore”)
  • Baxter State Park (take it over from Maine, expand it, and make it more accessible with some awesome roads; call it “End of the Appalachian Trail Park”)
  • Moosehead Lake (Maine; buy up some land to connect with what is now Baxter State Park)

A few photos from Acadia, September 2020:

And, right next to the park, a guide to healing our nation (“Vote Democrat; Wach MSNBC & CNN News”):

Related:

  • Park Drive photo above by Tony Cammarata of Aerial Boston (I was flying the Robinson R44 helicopter)
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Testing will end coronaplague, but quarantine anyway…

by philg

From the local K-8 school…

I am writing to inform you that a student … has tested positive for COVID-19. All families with students in the impacted cohort have been notified and their children were picked up from school immediately. Our first responsibility is to keep our students and staff safe.

(In case you thought their first responsibility was education!)

We have been planning for this scenario during our reopening planning process and have a comprehensive plan in place to sanitize the school, inform families whose students were at risk of exposure or in close contact, and support the affected family as they navigate this stressful experience.

Our student body and staff have been closely adhering to the safety protocols including mask wearing, hand washing, and physical distancing.

(But we don’t believe that any of this stuff actually works, which is why what might be a false positive test leads us to shut down a “cohort” of the school?)

We are grateful to our families for their continued efforts to keep students home at the first sign of symptoms. These measures, taken in combination, greatly reduce the risk of additional transmission.
Though we cannot provide specific information about our school community member who tested positive, your child was not a close contact (defined as being within 6 feet of the person for at least 15 minutes) of the affected school member. Please continue to monitor your child for symptoms, and keep your child home if he/she/they shows any symptoms or is not feeling well.

Parents of students who were in close contact with the community member have been notified separately. All close contacts should be tested but must self-quarantine for 14 days after the last exposure to the person who tested positive, regardless of test result.

(Testing is critical for prevailing in the war that we’ve declared on this virus, but we are going to throw out the test results and quarantine everyone regardless.)

Some good news for Chlorox:

To further prevent transmission of the virus to other staff and students, we have disinfected the school with a focus on those areas frequented by the community member that tested positive. We will continue to be vigilant in adhering to all of the protocols that have been put in place in an effort to continue in person learning.

But they close the school every afternoon at 1:45 pm, a shortened school day compared to the old 2:50 pm. I had thought this was so that school employees, who can’t be expected to work past 3 pm, would have time to douse everything with Chlorox. If everything is already disinfected daily, what is this going to be? Double secret disinfection?

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Silicon Valley Shutdown Karens move into bigger houses

by philg

My rich friends in the Bay Area are tireless Facebook advocates for more shutdown. Most of them live in spacious homes worth $2-3 million or more. Consistent with Your lockdown may vary, here’s “Bay Area home prices soar with suburban boom” (Mercury News, October 7):

Coronavirus drives demand for space, single-family homes

With millions out of work, and restaurants, shops and retailers closing, one spot in the economy shines for thriving and affluent professionals — Bay Area real estate.

As if the devastating pandemic had passed over the tech campuses, Spanish-tiled roofs and Tesla-filled garages of Silicon Valley, luxury home sales exploded in August and drove median prices up 16 percent from the previous year to levels approaching the market peak in 2018.

The median sale price for an existing single family home in August in the Bay Area was $975,000, according to DQNews data. The gains were driven by a limited supply of properties for sale and a greater portion of high-end homes selling, agents and economists said.

“We’ve never seen such high price appreciation in a recession,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist with real estate data firm CoreLogic. “The recession hasn’t hit everyone the same way.”

Bay Area agents say demand is driven by techies and professionals looking for more space for family and home office Zoom-rooms.

If these are the folks making decisions on when to end shutdown, I’m not predicting an early exit from cower-in-place!

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How will Amy Coney Barrett rule on the big question for 2021?

by philg

Readers: How are the Amy Coney Barrett hearings going? Did she truly sit through five (5!) hours of opening statements on Monday? Why couldn’t she have been resting at the Trump Hotel while the politicians talked about themselves?

This video shows that Judge Barrett’s daily driver is a Honda Odyssey minivan. Have the senators therefore questioned her on the big question for 2021: should we loyal Honda owners jump ship to the new Sienna minivan?

If you can live with seven seats, the top-of-the-line Siennas feature these Gulfstream-style recliners:

An expensive option? The Court disagrees! The entire top trim Sienna costs less than a single FAA-certified seat for a business jet.

How about this grille?

For comparison, the 2021 Toyota Avalon:

And the Audi e-tron (electric!):

Who decided that we needed cars with huge grilles?

Circling back to the Supreme Court nominee, let’s check my Facebook feed… From a Democrat who fled Manhattan:

A woman who hates women for the Supreme Court; it’s great, she can join a black man who hates black people (tap dancers get the bad rap but Clarence Thomas IS the ultimate Uncle Tom) and sit with the white guy majority who hates everybody. Bye-bye civil rights, bye-bye civil behaviour. Voting T-rump is the greatest act of self-hatred (and planetary destruction) currently available. Unmasked rage disguised as pride; wear it well. My absentee ballot has been counted in Maine.

From a righteous computer programmer:

I don’t know what Barrett will do once she’s seated on the Supreme Court. But it’s perfectly clear to me what the man who nominated her expects her to do. And it’s perfectly clear to her, as well.

(i.e., even after she gets her lifetime job, her thoughts and actions will be determined by a man)

From Maskachusetts Congresswoman Katherine Clark:

#AmyConeyBarrett says she doesn’t have an agenda. But she does have a record—and it stands as an affront to women’s health and rights.

From a divorced mom, part of the most reliable Democrat voting bloc, over a YouTube of Senator Klobuchar’s opening statement:

Please Vote. We can’t just stand by. We have to turn out. #vote2020 #vote

(but her friends are mostly in coastal elite states that are already 100 percent guaranteed to vote for Presidents Biden and Harris!)

From a university employee who describes herself as a “cat person, voter”:

This is not a drill. If Barrett is named to the Supreme Court, I and millions of others will lose access to health care.

(she needs some tips from folks who arrive via caravan over the southern border! Show up at the hospital, don’t give an address, and say “I’m undocumented”!)

Related:

  • NYT headline: “Barrett, Declining to Detail Legal Views, Says She Will Not Be ‘a Pawn’ of Trump” (i.e., the nominee talked about people who are and aren’t pawns of the evil mastermind Trump); NYT article body: “I would certainly hope that all members of this committee would have more confidence in my integrity than to think that I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people,” she said. (i.e., no mention of Trump specifically!)
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Young slender Ukrainian blonde moves to Sweden to produce pornography

by philg

For the Church of Shutdown faithful, Sweden’s lower death rate from COVID-19 can be explained primarily by the Swedes being masked and mostly shut down. By continuing to run schools, offices, restaurants, and gyms, the Swedes are merely practicing a variant form of shutdown. Without evidence or knowledge, American Shutdowners will simply assert that everyone in Sweden is wearing a mask. Sometimes white American Shutdown Karens will says that Sweden is a special case because the Swedes are vastly more intelligent than Americans (this might be a swipe at our darker-skinned underclass, which they believe does not exist in the Land of Blondes (in fact, 25 percent of Swedes are immigrants or children of immigrants)).

Enter @SvitlanaNosul, publishing smartphone videos that can be described only as “pornography” (showing humans doing things that are shocking to our sensibilities, e.g., riding the subway without masks). Examples:

Her Twitter bio:

I was born in the USSR, grew up in independent* Ukraine, and now live in the kingdom* of Sweden I stand for the truth and the right to be a free human being

She is lucky that she didn’t emigrate to Maskachusetts!

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Is watching sports less popular because we can’t watch other people watching sports?

by philg

“Why Are Pandemic Sports Ratings So Terrible?” (New York Magazine) describes a fall in TV viewership in a country where millions of people are more or less locked into their homes, unemployed, etc. How can Americans possibly have something better to do right now than turn on the TV and watch a game that they used to enjoy watching?

Here’s my theory: a big reason that people care about sports is that they see other people caring about sports. In the pre-coronapanic days you’d go into a restaurant and see people in the bar with their eyes glued to a professional sports game. This subconsciously communicated that the game was important. Maybe you’d go over to a friend’s house and the game would be on. Another hint that this game is important.

If you’re by yourself at home, on the other hand, there is nobody else to tell you that a particular sport is important enough to be worth watching.

Readers: What’s your theory? Americans are glued to screens more than ever, right? Why aren’t they watching sports on those screens?

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Should I vote for ranked-choice voting?

by philg

The first of my five mail-in ballots has arrived. 3 out of 7 candidates are Democrats running unopposed. The remaining 4 races are 100 percent guaranteed to be won by Democrats. A potential contest: Question 2 is whether to adopt ranked choice voting.

As someone whose political beliefs are most aligned with the libertarians, a last-choice party in a nation where people want a planned economy (my 2012 document after watching both the Republican and Democrat candidates promise that government would create jobs, ensure fair wages, etc.), is this for me? I could vote for a libertarian candidate and then also pick a second choice from a party that has a chance in a country whose citizens want government to cater to their every need? Yet in a Massachusetts general election it is almost inconceivable for a non-Democrat to win. So how can this have any practical effect?

The “Independent Women’s Law Center” opposes this question. We don’t know what people identifying with the remaining 50+ genders say. Wikipedia says that Estonia had something like this, but abandoned it in 2001. As government in Estonia is radically more efficient than here in the U.S., that’s a strike against the idea.

Readers: What do you say about this proposal?

Update, 10/16: a friend highlighted “The Ancient Greeks Teach Us The Perils of Ranked Choice Voting”, by a political science professor:

As this list [of supporters] makes clear, RCV supporters fall overwhelmingly into two (mostly overlapping) categories: Democrats and groups whose members vote heavily for Democratic candidates; and groups that (Libertarians aside) have practically no chance of winning elections even under RCV, except at the local level. Given Massachusetts’s status as a heavily Democratic state (the state’s congressional delegation consists solely of Democrats, who also have long held a substantial supermajority in the legislature), Democrats have little to fear from losing elections to Republicans as a result of RCV. Rather, they need to court members of left-liberal fringe groups, as well as public-employee unions, to ensure that they turn out to vote — knowing that those groups’ supporters would almost surely make the Democratic candidate, at worst, their second-choice candidate, further guaranteeing the defeat of any Republican contender.

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