• • • google suggested • • •
• • • some of the things I read in antisocial isolation • • •
PROTIP: During the 1918 Flu Epidemic, Pet Parents Put Masks on Their Cats
Yancia the bulldog even made the local paper: “This Seattle Dog Wears Flu Mask.”
Tommy the cat is on the left, and Golly on the right.
DR. WOODS HUTCHINSON HAD OPINIONS about a certain epidemic. “The reason for the spread? Pig-headedness, not another thing,” he raged in in Des Moines on November 25, 1918. “We knew it was prevalent in Europe and that it would find its way here.” His speech on the so-called Spanish influenza was colorful, to say the least. “The ‘flu’ germ doesn’t care a hang for your state of mind,” he noted. “After he takes up residence in your nose, he doesn’t give a blankety-blank whether you’re afraid of him or not.”
Nevertheless, Hutchinson was anti-quarantine. Instead, he whole-heartedly espoused the use of masks, pointing to the West Coast, where some cities made mask-wearing mandatory in public. Photos from the time show people going to and fro, with the lower halves of their faces swathed in gauze. Like today’s makeshift masks, their effectiveness may have been limited. But some Americans took flu safety one step further: they masked their cats, too.
One image, dating from the years when Spanish flu rampaged across the United States, shows a unknown family of six, in Dublin, California, all wearing the standard mask of the time: “white and fastened around the head,” as Catharine Arnold writes in Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History. A behatted woman holds a bouquet of flowers. And the family patriarch holds a tense-looking masked cat under his arm, like a loaf of bread. Faint wrinkles under the cat’s right ear show where the gauze is bunching up, and a faint shadow marks the spot of its triangular nose.
This unknown family from Dublin, California, probably risked life and limb to mask their cat.
People worldwide are fretting over their pets catching COVID-19: A recent study suggested that cats can contract it, at least under laboratory conditions. Dogs seem to be less susceptible, though dog masks have popped up on eBay. In February, news stories showed unfortunate cats in China whose owners covered their faces completely with masks, simply punching out holes for the eyes. …
The News Is Making People Anxious. You’ll Never Believe What They’re Reading Instead.
The coronavirus pandemic has driven interest in uplifting headlines way, way up.
Though it can be hard to see past the daily deluge of devastating headlines, there is plenty of good news in the world right now — and a great deal of interest in reading it.
Instagram accounts dedicated to good news, such as @TanksGoodNews and @GoodNews_Movement, have seen follower counts skyrocket in recent weeks. At the end of March, the actor John Krasinski introduced a “news network for good news” on YouTube; within a week, Some Good News had surpassed 1.5 million subscribers and 25 million views. Google searches for “good news” spiked a month ago and have only continued to rise.
“We’ve seen an unprecedented level of growth in the past four weeks,” said Lucia Knell, the director of brand partnerships at Upworthy, who noted that the company saw a 65 percent growth in followers on Instagram and 47 percent increase in on-site page views in March, compared to the previous month.
Upworthy was founded in 2012 with a commitment to positive storytelling. At the time, Facebook’s algorithm appeared to favor inspiring, clickbaity headlines; you may recall seeing them all over your feed. But in 2013, Upworthy and other good-news sites saw page views drop considerably after Facebook adjusted its algorithm.
Major news organizations (including The New York Times) have created their own good-news properties over the years. Now, more than ever, readers are seeing a need for them.
“It’s just been an avalanche of people writing and saying how much they need these stories or they read a story and tears are just streaming down their face,” said Allison Klein, who runs the Inspired Life blog at The Washington Post. “People are constantly saying thank you for showing something that made them not feel terrible.” …
Ed. Learned something today: No news is mediocre news. Perhaps I should have messed with that link as barely uninteresting at all things. The hit count from this clunker would probably yield yields the same result.
A New Statistic Reveals Why America’s COVID-19 Numbers Are Flat
Few figures tell you anything useful about how the coronavirus has spread through the U.S. Here’s one that does.
How many people have the coronavirus in the United States? More than two months into the country’s outbreak, this remains the most important question for its people, schools, hospitals, and businesses. It is also still among the hardest to answer. At least 630,000 people nationwide now have test-confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, a state-by-state tally conducted by more than 100 volunteers and experts. But an overwhelming body of evidence shows that this is an undercount.
Whenever U.S. cities have tested a subset of the general population, such as homeless people or pregnant women, they have found at least some infected people who aren’t showing symptoms. And, as ProPublica first reported, there has been a spike in the number of Americans dying at home across the country. Those people may die of COVID-19 without ever entering the medical system, meaning that they never get tested.
There is clearly some group of Americans who have the coronavirus but who don’t show up in official figures. Now, using a statistic that has just become reliable, we can estimate the size of that group—and peek at the rest of the iceberg.
According to the Tracking Project’s figures, nearly one in five people who get tested for the coronavirus in the United States is found to have it. In other words, the country has what is called a “test-positivity rate” of nearly 20 percent.
That is “very high,” Jason Andrews, an infectious-disease professor at Stanford, told us. Such a high test-positivity rate almost certainly means that the U.S. is not testing everyone who has been infected with the pathogen, because it implies that doctors are testing only people with a very high probability of having the infection. People with milder symptoms, to say nothing of those with none at all, are going undercounted. Countries that test broadly should encounter far more people who are not infected than people who are, so their test-positivity rate should be lower. …
UNRELATED: Protests against US stay-at-home orders gain support from rightwing figures
Demonstrations against coronavirus measures spread across US as Fox News, Limbaugh and others champion conservative effort.
Protests against stay-at-home coronavirus rules have gained support from rightwing politicians and media groups in recent days, setting up a battle between scientists and public health leaders who say restrictions are necessary and some Republicans demanding the measures be lifted.
The Michigan Conservative Committee organized a rally, dubbed “Operation Gridlock”, outside Michigan’s state capitol on Wednesday, demanding that the governor, Gretchen Whitmer, lift restrictions designed to limit the spread of coronavirus. Thousands of people drove to Lansing, waving Donald Trump 2020 campaign signs chanting “lock her up”, and flouting social distancing restrictions.
Demonstrations against coronavirus measures are spreading across the US, with people holding rallies in North Carolina, Utah, Kentucky and Ohio in recent days. A protest is planned in Virginia on Thursday, while a Texas rally, pushed by a host on the rightwing conspiracy theory website Infowars, is set to target the state capitol in Austin on Saturday. …
Does Anyone In The White House Understand How Money Works?
For a long time we’ve known that Donald Trump has ridiculous notions about money. He’s often compared to Lucille Bluth, a character from Arrested Development who infamously asked if a banana cost $10 at the grocery store.
But the real Bluthian figure right now is Steve Mnuchin who said this:
Steve Mnuchin thinks Americans can live on $1,200 for 10 weeks. pic.twitter.com/GrS0ON4gcm
— Brianna Westbrook (@BWestbrookAZ8) April 15, 2020
Now to be fair here (which is a gross statement in and of itself when talking about the melting wax figure of John Oliver that is Steve Mnuchin) he’s not outright saying that we can all exist on $1200 for the next 10 weeks. He’s saying it will “bridge liquidity” which for anyone who still has their job might be true, but probably not considering 40% of Americans are one paycheck away from poverty. For anyone who’s lost their job, this helps them be liquid about as much as a blowdryer helps an iceberg become liquid. The national median rent in the United States for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,078. To think we can somehow just stretch that remaining $122 into next month’s rent and beyond requires either a deep misunderstanding of what average Americans can afford or just a deep apathy towards the problem.
House Democrats have proposed a bill that will pay Americans $2,000 a month, provided they are making less than $130,000 annually, but if you’re expecting this to pass congress then we’ve got a $10 banana to sell you. What is more likely is that the Trump administration will continue to do their best to provide as little relief to the working class as possible while allowing things like this to happen:
So here's my scoop: banks have been given the green light by regulators to take the $1,200 CARES Act payments and use them to offset an individual's existing debts. https://t.co/by1oQ1uoJl
— David Dayen (@ddayen) April 14, 2020
…
UNRELATED: Out Of Curiosity, How Does One ‘Ethically Source’ A Human Spine?
For those of us working from home, “high fashion” isn’t exactly at the top of everybody’s priorities. Sweatpants are the standard now. Accessories? Yeah, even wearing socks is a tall ask at this point. Which makes this a great time to talk about what might be the freakiest handbag ever stitched together.
Behold:
That — that can’t be real, can it? A futile, but hopeful question. The bag was apparently designed by Arnold Putra, a designer and “Rich Kid of Instagram” out of Indonesia. The Instagram post claims it’s a child’s spine who had osteoporosis (How kind of him to specify.). You might also note that the post was made in September of 2016, so it’s not exactly super fresh, but it’s resurfaced recently on Twitter and has gotten people ready to make up for lost beingabsolutelyhorrified-time.
So to verify it, Insider actually contacted Putra to find out what was up. …
Spring SAT Tests Cancelled Due To Pandemic https://t.co/hg26DafNIF #WhatDoYouThink? pic.twitter.com/OpCNtWXyRF
— The Onion (@TheOnion) April 16, 2020
Why Boredom Affects Us So Much
If being isolated at home is starting to feel like your own personal prison, it’s because tedium is also used as a severe form of carceral punishment.
Boredom within confinement is one of the harshest forms of punishment in existence, and a signature practice throughout the American penal system.
For more than a month, and with no definitive end in sight, many Americans have been confined to their home because of shelter-in-place orders due to the novel coronavirus. Though health-care workers, service-sector employees, and gig laborers are running at a fever pitch to keep millions of people safe and functioning, the rest of us are stuck indoors without the fun of social gatherings or the routines of work and school to structure our time. That reality has brought scores of people face-to-face with how agonizing it can feel to be bored for days on end.
By now, most people have likely seen or made comparisons of this new normal to house arrest or detention. Comedians such as Ellen DeGeneres have even jokingly likened self-quarantining to jail. It is beyond a reach to compare our temporary state of health-advisory compliance to the condition of the 2 million Americans currently incarcerated. But if being bored and idle at home is starting to feel like your own personal prison, it may be time to consider a harrowing truth: Boredom within confinement is one of the harshest forms of punishment in existence, and a signature practice throughout the American penal system.
Many people believe that boredom within confinement is a measured, even sensible, form of punishment. Parents, for instance, often send their misbehaved kids to their rooms alone and deprive them of the phones and tablets that occupy their attention. Pop culture is riddled with images of after-school detentions where the offender is bored to tears by rewriting the same sentence on a chalkboard.In this widespread acceptance of boredom as punishment, however, many Americans underestimate the degrees of severity between the restlessness of provisional idleness and the long-term boredom that comes with being imprisoned, specifically within solitary confinement. Isolated detainees routinely serve weeks, months, or years in a condition that is already cruel in denying them human touch and interaction. But the fact that solitary confinement is specifically designed to numb all of one’s senses and maximize suffering shows that boredom is an essential quality of one of the most severe forms of punishment. …
Miguel the Macaw was bored grooming himself on his perch after eating breakfast. I put him on the floor to wander around. He wandered. He climbed his cage. He's grooming himself. He's making happy sounds. pic.twitter.com/VWnqCSiXNz
— Jef Norton (@BirdJanitor) April 17, 2020
Chart flop: VisitBritain sorry for literary map ignoring Wales and Scotland
The nation’s official tourism agency published a map of inspiring bookish sights that left Wales ‘depicted as trees’ and Scotland guillotined.
Map shared by VisitBritain of literature landmarks, which omitted Wales and Scotland. Embiggenable to reveal the complete map.
VisitBritain has apologised after publishing a map of British literature that appeared to suggest Wales’s only contribution to the literary history of the British Isles was a few trees.
Published on Wednesday on the Twitter account of Britain’s official tourism body, the map invited users to “explore the places” that inspired books including Dracula, Harry Potter and Wuthering Heights, “and sent British literature around the world”.
But followers in Wales and Scotland were quick to highlight the lack of any books inspired by Welsh or Scottish locations. Harry Potter, which JK Rowling wrote in Edinburgh, was linked to Alnwick Castle in the north of England, where parts of the Philosopher’s Stone and the Chamber of Secrets were filmed, while Sherlock Holmes, by Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle, was linked to London.
Instead, VisitBritain noted inspirations including William Wordsworth’s and Swallows and Amazons’ connections to the Lake District, Daphne du Maurier’s Cornwall and the Famous Five’s Dorset.
“When it came to Wales, there’s a hint of dragon’s tail – possibly related to the nearby Lord of the Rings pin – and everything else in the country is depicted as trees,” said Wales Online in response. “No mention of any of the great literary minds of Wales. And to add insult to injury, Roald Dahl is placed nowhere near Cardiff [where the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG was born].” …
UNRELATED: You can’t leave that lion there: big cats nap on road in South Africa amid lockdown
Pride of eight lions photographed snoozing on tarmac in Kruger National Park.
This lion pride is usually resident on Kempiana contractual park, an area Kruger tourists do not see.
Lions and other wild animals have been taking advantage of the peace and quiet in South Africa’s vast Kruger national park as the country’s strict lockdown continues.
On Thursday, park ranger Richard Sowry took photographs of a pride of at least eight lions, including a few young cubs, snoozing on the tarmac just outside one of the park’s rest lodges.
Kruger media officer Isaac Phaala told the BBC the lions would normally be in the bushes but that they were “very smart and now they are enjoying the freedom of the park without us”. …
RELATED: Wild Bears ‘Having a Party’ in Coronavirus-Closed Yosemite National Park
Wild bears in Yosemite National Park are coming out of the woodwork in what park officials are calling a “party” following the park’s March 20 closure in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The wildly popular park is visited by millions of people every year, and at the same time hundreds of bears call the Rhode Island-sized park home, said Ranger Katie, a wildlife biologist who has worked with black bears in Yosemite National Park for more than a decade, in a Facebook live streaming over the weekend.
“For the most part, I think [the bears] are having a party,” said Ranger Katie. “This time of year is difficult for the animals here. There can be literally walls of cars, stop-and-go traffic, or people in the park.” …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Full coverage: https://t.co/pd2Zj32TgE
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 17, 2020
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
Sen. Kamala Harris thinks that President Trump’s failure to respond quickly to the coronavirus has made the crisis worse, causing economic destruction and costing American lives.
“There is no question that that had we a president in charge who actually took their responsibility seriously, that we would probably be looking at a lot less damage than we have incurred,” she said in an interview with VICE News. “We watch every day of the number of people infected and the number of people who are dead. We are every day hearing and watching stories about body bags. So, look, the buck stops with the president.”
This week the U.S. took the global lead in both confirmed coronavirus cases as well as deaths, surpassing Italy, Spain, and possibly China, though data from China is thought to be unreliable. At the same time, 22 million have claimed unemployment benefits in the past three weeks, and retail sales have plummeted as wide sectors of the economy have shut down.
“The fact is that he has abandoned his role of leadership and meaning the role of the president of the United States,” she said. “He’s abandoned the role of the president of the United States.”
Then the California Democrat ticked off what she sees as failures of the Trump administration in its response to the pandemic, which has now claimed nearly 30,000 lives in the U.S.
“His failure to take this seriously, from the time of calling it a hoax, to getting rid of the Obama administration’s focus through the White House on pandemics, to him trivializing the issue including the importance of social distancing” has made the crisis in the United States worse than it needed to be, she said.
Harris spoke to VICE News through a video conference on Thursday to discuss legislation she has introduced to prioritize funding and tracking of racial health disparities from the pandemic. An Associated Press analysis of communities with racial impact data show that while African Americans made up 21% of the population studied, they accounted for 42% of the deaths to the coronavirus.
Harris, who dropped her own run for the White House earlier this year, is thought to be a potential vice presidential pick for presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
In the interview, she accused the current White House of taking an ideological approach to fighting the virus, rather than using the best science and fact-based analysis..
“The thing about this moment and it also is a source, therefore, of frustration about who this president is and how he has been approaching this issue: this is science. These things just don’t lie. Science is based on empirical data. Science is based on peer review. Science is based on analysis, objective analysis.”
THANKS to SHOWTIME and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.
Chinese citizen journalist Chen Qiushi traveled to Wuhan to report on coronavirus and undo the secrecy that would leave the world unprepared for what was to come.
He hasn’t been heard from since February 6th.
Billy Yulfo has worked at Zabar’s, a gourmet grocery store in Manhattan, for 17 years. He’d worked his way up from cashier to Assistant Manager. When the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City, he had to grapple with a new identity: that of an essential worker. “I can’t stay at home because I have two kids,” Yulfo says. “I won’t get paid if I don’t work, so I have to work. I have to put my health at risk every day out of necessity.” Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/ind…
President Trump continues to use his prodigious air time to shift blame and grandstand about the economy while ignoring calls for a massive ramp up in coronavirus testing in the United States.
THANKS to CBS and A Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Seth takes a closer look at President Trump wanting to reopen the economy by the end of April despite the advice of experts and lack of power to do so.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Here’s me commentary on a few more Destination F classics for ya!
今度は、寝る準備をするまると、まだ寝なそうなはな。グルーミングつながりで、12年前のまるも登場します。This time, Maru is sleepy but Hana is not sleepy. And Maru of 12 years ago appears on this video!
FINALLY . . .
Around the World in Pandemic Street Art
Messages of respect, hope, and frustration have appeared in our largely empty public spaces.
A policeman stands over graffiti about social distancing at a temporary market in Chennai, India, April 9, 2020.
THE BRIGHT YELLOW WALL WITH bold, black words shouts for attention. Next to it there is a figure wearing sunglasses and a face mask, holding open a coat to reveal the word “HOPE” tucked into the pockets. Artist Corie Mattie found a wall in West Hollywood, California, and painted this mural by herself in less than 48 hours, according to her Instagram account. She is now seeking additional walls to deliver her illustrated tidings of hope.
Throughout the ages, artists have taken their messages to public spaces, from Pompeii’s walls in Roman times to New York City’s subway cars in the 1980s. Driven by the current pandemic and its unique aesthetic—knobby viruses, face masks, messages of solidarity—creatives around the world have continued to express themselves publicly. Cities and beyond are studded with love for healthcare workers, cynicism for politicians, frustration at the crisis, or simple encouragement.
Atlas Obscura has compiled a collection of these messages—direct, witty, poignant. The streets may be mostly empty of people during lockdown, but they’re not empty of humanity.
A mural in Los Angeles, California, April 4, 2020.
A mural reads “Fight!” near the construction site of a medical center’s new building in Moscow, Russia, March 26, 2020.
A man walks past art of a person pulling a chain with a germ attached to it, by the artist known as the Rebel Bear, in Glasgow, Scotland, April 3, 2020.
…
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
Good times!
We believe we have something you’re looking for, world! It’s called hope! pic.twitter.com/Tn4BQDWAO2
— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) April 13, 2020
Well played, sir!