March rambling: don’t be an idiot

floccinaucinihilipilification

sign at the gas pump
Why India’s Muslims are in grave danger.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Coronavirus advice: ‘Don’t be complacent, and don’t be an idiot’ and Medicare for All.

Everything looks fine until it doesn’t.

Weekly Sift: Coronavirus Reaches My Town.

Why retirement insecurity is the new American epidemic.

Rules for Addressing Panhandlers.

The Inclusive Internet Index 2020.

Does Anybody Know Who’s Electable?

What Are Those Strange Things You See Floating In Your Eye?

Bye, Chris Matthews.

Was Jeanne Calment the Oldest Person Who Ever Lived — or a Fraud?

Cookie Monster breaks the Internet.

Touching a camera for the first time in three months.

James Lipton, animated host of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’, dies at 93.

Max von Sydow, Legendary Seventh Seal Star, Dies at 90.

RIP Earl Pomerantz

My wife’s aunt, Emelia Olin obit.

ChangeRoots.com

What is Bipartisanship, Really

Racism, Retaliation and Othering

Donnybrook

He Bears Full Responsibility for Botched Response to Coronavirus in U.S.

Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller Wrote His Coronavirus Speech That’s Tanking Markets and Spreading Falsehoods and Fear.

The Daily Show video: Pandumbic. Late Night with Seth Meyers: Trump Contradicts Experts as Coronavirus Is Declared a Pandemic.

A limerick by Catbird

There once was a POTUS named trump
Whose mind was as sharp as a stump
“It’s perfect!” he crowed
“Test kits? We’ve a load!”
And now we’re all down in the dumps.

Pressed on the ACA, his rhetoric takes an incoherent turn.

How should Democrats fight against a president who has no moral or legal compass?

Newly obtained documents reveal more Secret Service payments to Trump properties.

He Installs Homophobic Racist Tea Party Birther Who Promised to Send Obama ‘Home to Kenya’ as New Chief of Staff.

Language

What is the difference between appoggiatura and acciaccatura? Appoggiatura is “a type of musical ornament, falling on the beat, which often creates a suspension and subtracts for itself half the time value of the principal note which follows while acciaccatura is a short grace note (theoretically taking no time at all), occurring on the beat occupied by the main note to which it is prefixed.”

Definition of meliorism: the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment.

Words That Describe Incredibly Specific Things, such as erinaceous, jentacular, nudiustertian, qualtagh, and especially floccinaucinihilipilification.

Words Fossilized In Idioms.

Geez, jeez!

12 Regional Slang Words From Across the U.S.

The Origin Of “Piss Poor” And Other Popular Sayings.

Insight of the Day.

Now I Know

The Tampons That Fought Back By Adding a Spine and The Color of Flying Calmly and The Beyond Gold Medalist and A Blockbuster Parenting Move and How Much is a Buttload, Exactly? and The Somewhat-Silent Explosions Made for Dogs and The Snack You Had to Commit a Crime to Try and Why Stop Signs Have Eight Sides.

MUSIC

Philippa Duke Schuyler performing Bach.

Homunculus C.F. by Julia Perry.

Fidelio overture by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Coverville 1298: This Day in Covers: February 25, 1985.

God’s Counting On Me – Pete Seeger.

WHATCHA SEE IS WHATCHA GET – The Dramatics.

Mr. Sandman – The Chordettes. Obit: Lynn Evans Mand, singer of hits with the Chordettes, at 95.

K-Chuck Radio: The Invasion of the Break-Ins.

The Archive Of Contemporary Music — And Its 3 Million Recordings — Is Leaving NY.

Johnny Cash thought his recording career was over. Then he met legendary producer Rick Rubin.

I’ve got the coronavirus blues

“We have contained this” doesn’t work.

coronavirusI’ll admit that I am now terrified about the coronavirus spreading in the United States. But it’s not just the unknown nature of the disease. It’s the abysmal United States strategy in dealing with it from the very beginning.

The administration has known about coronavirus since at least December 27, 2019. “It did nothing until January 29, when the White House posted a memo announcing President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force.”

Then Vice-President Mike Pence adds top economic advisor Larry Kudlow and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin to the Task Force, making clear what the actual goal is. That is to spin the news so that the stock market might be bolstered.

At the CPAC conference, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney Accused the Media of Hyping Coronavirus to Bring Down Trump: ‘That’s What It’s All About’.

Junior’s rant

Trump Jr. Accuses Democrats of Hoping Coronavirus ‘Kills Millions’ to End President’s ‘Streak of Winning’. THIS is why I’m worried about the potential pandemic. The people in and around the administration seem more obsessed with the politics of the issue than of the health concerns.

To DT Jr.’s idiotic comment, let me make it clear that I don’t want “millions” to die in order to make anyone look bad politically. I want a robust response from the medical community, bolstered by the government. I’m not seeing that yet.

Here’s an economic truth. If we actually contain the coronavirus virus, the stock market, which tanked all last week, will rebound. No spin from the White House will work.

“In a muddled, dishonest, rambling news conference from the White House press briefing room…Trump…lied. He twisted the truth, [and] displayed little grasp of basic facts.” As usual, “he didn’t let the experts run the show. He instilled no confidence Wednesday night. The markets on Thursday rewarded his efforts with the DOW posting the largest single-day loss in history.”

Hey, I want the market to keep going up. I’m a retiree. My 401(k) took a bath at the end of February. But trotting out Larry Kudlow to say “we have contained this” doesn’t work. When he lies, “I won’t say ‘air-tight,’ but it’s pretty close to air-tight,” it creates greater fear, not less.

Dismantling units designed to protect against pandemics

This is a government that has regularly shown it doesn’t believe in science. In fact, according to the hardly-liberal Foreign Policy site from late January, the current administration has sabotaged America’s coronavirus response. “As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.”

If Bush (either one), or Obama, or Clinton (either one) had been in charge, I wouldn’t be nearly as nervous. Meanwhile, A Guide to COVID-19 for Public Libraries.

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