I'm reading John Barry's book about the 1918 pandemic. I'm up to the part where they're deciding in Philadelphia whether to hold the war bonds parade. Seems like where we're at now with MLB. At least then the US was at war, not sure what the excuse is today. Basically we're the most spoiled country, not serious, can't think, reason, don't listen, take pride in pissing other people off (the Fox watchers) and couldn't save our own lives if all it took was wearing a mask and staying home for a few months, all of us at the same time.#We need an online service, like a Gofundme or Kickstarter, that makes it easy to set up a PAC. There should be thousands of PACs. #
BTW, The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis, completely predicted the government's handling of the pandemic. I read it a couple of summers ago, but never imagined we'd see the chaos so soon.#Premise: We are not limited by what the president will or won't do. Suppose we felt that the one thing we need more than anything is to have Fauci on national TV every night to tell us what's new with Covid. If we really wanted that, could we make it happen?#
I listened to the first episode of the Joe Trippi podcast yesterday. I met Joe when he was running the Dean campaign in 2004. First campaign to make use of blogging, opened up politics to the people. He made an important point in the podcast, that politics is additive. Of course we want to have Republicans speak at this year's DNC in support of Joe Biden. This is one of the benefits of having Biden as the candidate. We need to re-form the political system in the US, the opposition are the people who don't follow the Constitution. Republicans who believe in the rule of law are our friends, our fellow Americans. #
This video of a Chicago car-jacking raises a couple of questions. 1. How did the bike riders rent the Divvy bikes without giving up their identities, or did they hijack the bikes too? 2. What if the victim had locked his doors, would they have been able to get in the car? Also he had the power to move, why didn't he? Would you have? What if it meant injuring or killing the car-jackers? How would the web have responded if he had done that? Would you have? If the roles were changed, would you feel differently? If the driver was black, and the hijackers cops, for example.#MLB should shut down, as should the NBA and NFL. Of all the leagues, the NBA has the most realistic approach to keeping the virus out of the game, but even that approach won't work. The disease is highly communicable. The tests are imperfect enough that the virus can get into the bubble, as it did with the Florida Marlins. The NFL, the craziest of the leagues, even wants to allow fans to attend their games. Major commercial sporting events are over until the virus is done. Same with schools, office buildings, mass transit, airlines, the White House.#