Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Again, I'm not the one recommending Sweden.

That's been you, hasn't it? I posted what the fella from WHO actually said, too. Testing and isolation.

I'm the one pushing Germany, remember?

 

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?

Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

 

I'm not pushing Sweden. I am saying that, here's a world science expert, promoting a method that would freak the shit out of many Americans, especially journalists. He mentions testing but apparently doesn't know that Sweden doesn't have a particularly high testing frequency. (Nor would it, necessarily, given Sweden intends, with its approach, for people to eventually get the disease.)

I suspect the biggest difference between US and every other nation is that we have a class of journalists who:

>>Largely, outside of a group of almost comically-partisan conservative journalists, look at the world the same way.

>>Are generally convinced America, as an idea, as a government, is a morally repugnant, barely tolerable thing, especially wherever people who don't agree with them live.

>>Who tacitly or openly vocalize this on Twitter.

To the extent this isn't true, good luck vocalizing even a middle position, even skepticism. You will generally be judged by your peers.

 

Maybe it's because I've always lived and worked in "flyover country," but I respectfully disagree. I recall some intense political arguments in the newsroom over the years, especially after the 2000 election.

If there's one thing I can generalize about regarding journalists, it's their disdain/avoidance of organized religion. I don't think they find America morally repugnant, but they find organized religion to be that way. Especially the Catholic Church due to its ongoing pedophile "pandemic."

 

That's fair. Very fair.

I would say Twitter, which is where a lot of these conversations now take place, is a relatively one-sided joint. And, because the Internet has shrunk the journalistic universe, millennial journalists are far more clued into what coastal journalists think and care about than ever. And Twitter gives them a vehicle to know as much.

I look at the Frank Bruni column, Az posted, which, while written under the guise of sciencey...something, quickly turns into a sociopolitical commentary and policy prognosis of throwing money at the CDC and building a nicer public health building on Harvard's campus. It's all over the place. I mean, come on:

If America enters the next wave of coronavirus infections “with the wealthy having gotten somehow wealthier off this pandemic by hedging, by shorting, by doing all the nasty things that they do, and we come out of our rabbit holes and realize, ‘Oh, my God, it’s not just that everyone I love is unemployed or underemployed and can’t make their maintenance or their mortgage payments or their rent payments, but now all of a sudden those jerks that were flying around in private helicopters are now flying on private personal jets and they own an island that they go to and they don’t care whether or not our streets are safe,’ then I think we could have massive political disruption.”

“Just as we come out of our holes and see what 25 percent unemployment looks like,” she said, “we may also see what collective rage looks like.”

 

Sure thing. Stay well.

 

Christ. Her predictions are so dire I expect none of them to have any effect on people in positions of power.

I think she’s correct in saying there’s no going back to *normal.* The old normal is dead. A new *normal* will come out of this, in ways big and small. Her example was (is) 9/11 and how metal detectors are ever-present as we became “securitized.”

This is going to change — and test — our society in ways none of us living today have ever experienced.

 

Isn't 'public health' the intersection and interaction of science and politics?

 

Peter Coyote narrator voiceover.

 

I believe most would agree that many post-9/11 reactions were grossly over the top and/or ineffectual.

 

I’d leave the line and say to myself “those grapes are spoiled”