‘Orwellian’ does not even begin to describe it

This video clip montage show how Fox News personalities suddenly switched from asserting that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax to suddenly proclaiming its seriousness. What caused the change? Notice that the abrupt message reversal started after Trump’s address to the nation on March 11, after he must have realized that this crisis could not be combated by his usual bluster and lying and where he suddenly switched from proclaiming the pandemic to be a hoax to saying that it was a serious crisis. All these lemmings unquestioningly reversed course and followed him.

A silver lining in yesterday’s gloomy election news

As expected, yesterday was not a good day for Bernie Sanders in the three primaries held in Illinois, Florida, and Arizona (Ohio postponed its primary at the very last minute). There were all kinds of problems due to the confusion about the pandemic, and the absence of poll workers caused some polling stations to close. How this affected the overall turnout is not yet clear.
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We really need to take social distancing seriously

Starting at midnight last night, the ‘shelter in place’ order has been extended to Monterey county where I live due to two cases of Covid-19 being detected here. Since I have been voluntarily doing it already, this will not cause any change for me but it is going to be disruptive and costly for workers who lose their jobs and wages, parents with young children, businesses, and a whole host of others for whom the impact is not yet clear.

As I wrote before, there is something strange about this crisis because even though it is serious on a large scale, for most people things in their immediate surroundings seem so normal. This can cause people to minimize the danger and think it is overblown and thus ignore the recommendations. That would be very unwise. One woman, who describes herself as a “healthy 48 year old with no underlying conditions”, came down with the disease and had to be treated in the emergency room said that after her recovery, she was so irritated by all the comments that she read on various sites dismissing the threat that she decided to describe her “brutal” ordeal in order to let others know what it is really like and warn them not to take things lightly.
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Watching Bizet’s Carmen while ‘sheltering in place’

I am not a fan of opera, having seen only one live performance in my life. It was a long time ago when I was in Germany and we were taken as a group to see Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. My reaction? Kind of meh. But I decided to take advantage of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s decision, during the time when they are shut down due to the pandemic, to broadcast recordings of their past live streams of operas for free with a new one every night. (See this post for details).
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Crises will be exploited by the wealthy and powerful unless we defy them

In this excellent short video below titled Coronavirus Capitalism, Naomi Klein reminds us that past crises such as 9/11, the financial collapse of 2008, and natural disasters are often used by governments to ram through laws and other actions that benefit corporate and oligarchic interests at the expense of the rest of us, taking advantage of the fact that the public is too alarmed to pay close attention to what is going on.

Klein says that these times call for extreme vigilance and mass mobilization to prevent the power structure in the US using the pandemic to provide yet more giveaways to the wealthy, and instead use the moment to enact progressive legislation, as occurred with the New Deal in the 1930s after the Great Depression. She says that victory will go to those who are willing to fight harder.

Primary election chaos in Ohio

Today is primary day in Ohio (in addition to Florida, Arizona, and Illinois). Or is it? Voters in Ohio would be justified in being confused but the answer is that there will definitely not be any voting in that state today.

Yesterday Ohio governor Mike DeWine asked a judge to delay the election to June 2 with early voting to be allowed up until June 1 because of the pandemic but the judge refused. Later last night, DeWine ordered the closing of the polling places anyway creating a legal and constitutional controversy.
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Great moments in capitalism

Two brothers in Tennessee were found to have hoarded over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer. How did they manage to acquire that many, you ask?

[Matt] Colvin and his brother Noah became the subject of national scorn after the New York Times published a story about how they cleaned out stores of sanitizer and wipes in an attempt to profit off the public’s panic over the coronavirus pandemic.
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Noah Colvin, of Hixson took a 1,300-mile road trip in early March across Tennessee and Kentucky, racking up thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to resell online.

Meanwhile, Matt [described as an Amazon seller, whatever that is-MS] stayed at home, waiting for pallets of antibacterial wipes and even more sanitizer to be shipped, according to a New York Times article.
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The Colvins told the New York Times that Noah Colvin hit “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods. The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need the products more than others, he said to the Times, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

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John Oliver on the coronavirus

It turns out that the building that his studio and offices are in has been shut down because some people tested positive for the virus and so he had to tape this week’s show in a different room without an audience. He has good advice for people about what sources of information to trust about the virus and what to do (Infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC) and what not to trust (Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh) and not to pass on unverified information on social media. Jane Lytvynenko is maintaining a running link of all the fake stories that are circulating on the internet.
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Bernie Sanders had a great debate

There was a lot to like about the Democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden last night. Because there were only two people, it allowed for a lot of direct back and forth, with each actually asking the other questions, and the moderators let them do so. The moderators deserve some credit for not interrupting and making it all about them. In general the questions were decent and some important issues were discussed. Of course the pandemic and how to deal with it dominated the discussion, especially at the beginning, but there was a lot of discussion on topics that earlier debates had largely ignored, such as immigration reform and climate change. But the very fact that considerable time was given to these topics meant that other important topics did not get a hearing. I also thought that the lack of an audience in the room was a good thing and they should be dispensed with in future debates.
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Afghan government talks with Taliban stalled

The deal announced on February 29th by the Trump administration with the Taliban had as a major feature that in return for the US withdrawing all its troops from that country in 14 months, the Afghan government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban would issue ‘security guarantees’ (whatever that means) and pledge to begin talks with the Afghan government (whatever that means). But the US did not include the Afghan government in the negotiations and now it looks like there is a problem that has prevented the talks from beginning on March 10th.
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