Friday Open Thread ~ week in review edition


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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

ggersh's picture

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

enhydra lutris's picture

upon which week, global, national, local, personal as to locality and again global, political, apolitical, environmental, natural and personal as to the nature or content. One could, I assume, try to address each possible combo, but that would be madness. So -

local+natural: mockers, plural, at dawn and dusk and black phoebes, quantity uncertain, also at dawn and dusk.

Personal+personal: I have found a trick that enables me to relatively rapidly transcribe haiku allowing me to resume trying to create a database of sorts for them without unduly reducing the time I can spend on other things.

national/local+natural+political: changes to mask policy are in the wind, probably that the fully vaccinated need not wear them under most circumstances outdoors. This says a lot more than it might seem. For starts, not only that the vaccinated are generally quite unlikely to get it (duh) but also that they are unlikely to transmit it which has been, at least according to relatively large numbers of self-styled experts, an open question. This, of course presumes many things such as that the source(s) of these decisions know what they are talking about, that it isn't all a continuing big con, and the like.

linguistic query: A week in review. A work week or A 7 day week? The former would clearly include today. The latter must include A Friday, but not necessarily this one. (since it is a Review, one might presume that it is last Friday, since today isn't over) At any rate:

Five (why five?) random words for today: winter, lamentable, doll, possessive, hour. Use them as you see fit, though prose-poem possibilities literally leap out at me.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

the CDC says you don't need them, even indoors, once vaccinated.
Then Biden says those vaccinated will not wear masks. Some Dr. being interviewed on CNBC this morning says Biden's policy will force people to get their jab.
So, how will anyone but my Dr. know if I have been vaccinated or not? How will we know maskless people have been vaccinated? People have refused to wear a mask throughout this pandemic, and they aren't vaccinated, either.
Will this make masked people a target for scorn, even harm? Job loss?
What about people who have been advised by their Drs. NOT to get the jab?

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

CS in AZ's picture

@on the cusp

She has a compromised immune system and has been super afraid of Covid for over a year. She got the vaccine a couple of months ago. But still has not set foot inside my house until a couple weeks ago and then only with a mask on.

Last night we hugged tight for the first time in 14 months! And we had a cocktail together sitting in my kitchen! The feeling was there that it's really over. Finally we can resume living again.

She brought up her fears of going in public, like say a grocery store, without her mask. Which she is still struggling with despite the new "guidance" from yesterday. "How will I know if the people around me are vaccinated? I know a lot of them won't be!" I reminded her that it does not matter! I said YOU are vaccinated, which means YOU are protected, so you don't need to worry about what other people are doing. If they go without a mask or a vaccine, they are risking their own health, but not yours.

The new guidance yesterday did not say you can go without a mask only if everyone around you is vaccinated. They just said, we don't need them. The risk of getting sick with Covid are minuscule after the vaccine, even if you are with someone who is actively sick from it. This is shown by data among vaccinated healthcare workers who are constantly exposed. The risk of getting sick at all (having symptoms) is very low, and risk of serious illness from it are near zero.

I say let those who prefer the risk of Covid over getting a vaccine do what they want, and those of us who do get the vaccine can and should stop worrying about them. Time to end the mask mandates and requirements, totally. Clinging to them now is anti-science. I understand people are conditioned to be afraid. I feel it too, to a certain degree. But I'm actively being defiant of those feelings. We are going to eat in a restaurant, this weekend. And I really hope I can go shopping for groceries without a damn mask.

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@CS in AZ I will continue ordering take out. I do most of my own cooking, so it is not a thing.
What I am really upset about is re-opening court. I am uncomfortable sitting at a 3 ft. by 5 ft. table in the courtroom with other lawyers, and clients.
Wish I could retire.
I have no fears, just concerns, and want to take reasonable precautions to protect myself and others.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Azazello's picture

@CS in AZ
So many cool places with outside dining. We made a list: Caruso's, Boca Tacos, Barrio Brewery, El Charro ... We ended up having our celebratory first-time-eating-out-in-a-year dinner at Lodge on the Desert.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

CS in AZ's picture

@Azazello

We have so many great restaurants here and we definitely miss going out for a meal every once in a while. But I’m mainly doing it, like I said, as a form of “getting on with things” therapy. Given our schedule for the weekend it will likely be lunch on Sunday. No idea yet where we will decide on. My husband loves a place called El Cisne, up at Swan & Sunrise if memory serves. They make awesome chili rellenos, his favorite. No patio though. So we’ll see. Smile

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enhydra lutris's picture

@on the cusp @on the cusp

threatened by the idea of wearing a mask, that it diminishes their manhood, or makes them cowards (that one simply exposes them as cowards, fwiw, imo), or shows that they are evil liberals, or whatever seems so bizarre in the Bay Area. We have a very large population that is ethnically asian and many of them hae been wearing masks forever, maybe because of the air or concern over viruses or whatever. I've never asked, but they've been a sufficiently common sight for so long, that the covid thing was sort of a "well, looks like we'll be joining them now" thing, it's not something gross and crazy like a military haircut or something.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

[video:https://youtu.be/MfjPjQvXdcg]

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@enhydra lutris vaccinations, as well.
You have to be careful, or you will find yourself in a situation where one wrong word, and fists will fly.
I just try to get across the point that my mask is a sure sign I give a shit about the health of others.
As for the vaccination, people I deal with who have had the jab feel compelled to brag about how smart, how protected they are, how dangerous and contemptible un-vaxxed people are, and that if they die, the vaxxed people feel a good riddance is in order.
I think everyone has the right to take whatever steps to preserve their health they choose, or as their doctors advise them.
Just yesterday, I spoke with an attorney who has a cousin who is a dr. He is a virologist, if that is the correct term. He advised his lawyer cousin to avoid the vaccinations.
I have a dr. client. While visiting me about her upcoming family law case, she casually mentioned that I should not get a jab.
I represent 3 registered nurses. None of them will be getting a vaccination.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

enhydra lutris's picture

@on the cusp

some of them, have reasons for refusing vaccinations, they may be good or bad, right or wrong and well or misinformed. Whatever the case, there is enough FUD about tha you somewhat have to excuse them, and for some it may be the correct decision, maybe for all, though I seriously disbelieve that.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

reesemac's picture

"When somebody has devoted every day of their life to their craft (e.g. standup comedy) anyone trying to take that away without there being - literally - criminal cause is either a dishonest scumbag or an unthinking moron."

"The artificial schism of capitalism (free market commerce between empowered individual citizens) and socialism (collective support safeguarding health and opportunity for all citizens) is the most divisive misdirection of the modern world. Small wonder it’s been conditioned so deeply into the minds of the population. The ruling class knows reality is a complex tapestry of evolving regulations blending both socioeconomic systems.

Contrary to benevolent or necessary-evil propaganda, government's true job is to wield a monopoly on law and violence in a way that profits the ruling class while retaining and exercising close neutralizing control on unpredictable manifestations of freedom as and when they bubble up from the general population.

The main role of modern democracy is to balance public and private interests so society remains stable with as little disruption to extant wealth and power distribution as possible. Stability, as a government mandate, is naturally biased towards ring-fencing lineage wealth and the power of elites. This creates a perpetual inertia towards "conservative" exploitation, always pushing against the limits of how far the citizen can be bled. Elections aren't about sharing power. Elections are simply a litmus for these limits.

The most efficient way to maintain universal suffrage (democracy) in the context of an electorate excluded from power but regularly tested for stress points in the exploited population is polarized duopoly. In reality this means two parties ostensibly diametrically opposed to each other, supported by a base that's trained to support their political representatives absolutely, deaf to dialogue from outside the party orthodoxy. Ideally the base should be as close as possible to 49%-49%. It's usually at least 45%+ versus 45%+. These unshifting blocs are a shield against intrusion on the duopoly from third party while centralizing power at the top, i.e. with the ruling elites.

Elections are decided by a swing of a few percentage points and that's ultimately the litmus test - fought with all the appearance of a genuine ideological battlefield - where the temperature of the population is taken without ever risking a challenge that might disrupt the authority of the oligarchy class.

Endemic exploitation, informed, limited and guarded by well-honed political stability mechanisms, is an evolution of old feudal models. But it's an anachronism; calcified power dynamics not equipped to deal with the scale of 21st-century human society.

The hording of opportunity is retarding society’s progress and short-sighted capital exploitation is slowly impoverishing larger and larger sections of the population. Ultimately, if the current trends simply continue unresolved, power and wealth will become trapped in a moribund cannibalistic future – for elite, middle class and proletariat alike."

[[this is a test draft]]
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enhydra lutris's picture

@reesemac

A most excellent test draft.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@reesemac for your test score, reese.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981