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[guido]

DOI Is Using Coronavirus as a Smokescreen | Outside Online

More on the less obvious but more devastating damage being done by this administration. Anyone with an interest in outdoor recreation or wild places should be outraged and using their vote to stop this rape of our country.

[BBB]

Maybe this has shown up already? Or maybe not. The story has been nominated for best feature story by the City and Regional Magazine Association.

The Bicycle Thief

How an Olympic Hopeful Robbed 26 Banks on His Bike

That was an interesting, if somewhat depressing, read. So much talent wasted.

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Opinion | On Coronavirus, We’re #1 - The New York Times

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Opinion | Why Is America Choosing Mass Unemployment? - The New York Times

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The sleeper issue of the current economic crisis | Catherine Rampell | Washington Post

"Unlike the federal government, most state and local governments are legally required to balance their budgets. Without more federal help, states and cities shouldn’t expect a swift snapback from this crisis. Instead, they should brace for a downward spiral — of service cuts, deteriorating conditions for households and businesses, and depressed economic conditions for years to come."

[prcrstn8]

That was an interesting, if somewhat depressing, read. So much talent wasted.

Yeah, depressing but cycling-related, appropriate here.

[guido]

Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks Find Opposition Within: Staff Scientists - The New York Times

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E.P.A., Citing Coronavirus, Drastically Relaxes Rules for Polluters - The New York Times

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The U.S. traditionally leads in times of crisis. Now it’s practicing self-isolation. | Washington Post

"At a time of crisis when the world would typically look to the richest and most powerful nation, the United States has instead retreated into its own form of self-isolation, with its president downplaying the severity of the threat and top American officials squabbling among themselves.

Instead, the United States’ rivals, notably China and to a lesser extent Russia, have been stepping up to offer aid to other stricken nations, a role long fulfilled by the United States in crises stretching back to World War II.

Planeloads of Chinese medical equipment, masks and protective gear have been landing in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Iran and Iraq, among other nations. Jack Ma, China's wealthiest man, donated test kits, masks and protective suits to each of Africa’s 54 countries."

[guido]

Opinion | These Companies Enriched Themselves. Now They’re Getting a Bailout. - The New York Times

" Are taxpayers rewarding a decade of bad behavior? The $2 trillion coronavirus relief package making its way through Congress will yield payments to most Americans and protections for workers, but also special treatment — bailouts — for a number of industries and companies. The airline industry is expected to get some $50 billion in cash and loans; Boeing, which asked for $60 billion, is widely expected to receive some part of a $17 billion fund. And a general bailout fund of some $500 billion is expected to be used for other industries, like hotels and cruise lines, whose business has dried up.

To what degree are taxpayers being asked to bail out wealthy creditors, and to reward companies that, during years when they made enormous profits, spent their money propping up their own stock prices? "

[guido]

Letter of Recommendation: Bog Bodies - The New York Times

Let us turn our thoughts to the iron age...

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The Most Effective Stimulus Is Doing Whatever It Takes to Control the Coronavirus | The New Yorker

“I think this is going to be deeper than the great recession of 2008-2009, probably twice as large,” Claudia Sahm, the director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, told me on Friday. “I think the unemployment rate could skyrocket to more than twenty per cent.” But Sahm, who used to work at the Fed, also stressed that these predictions were provisional, and that until we get a grip on the pandemic it is impossible to know just how deep and long the slump is going to be. “The only thing that is going to stop the economic plummet is killing this goddam virus,” she said. “Public health is going to determine how low we go. We’ve never seen the U.S. economy and the world economy shut down like this. The people who are saying ‘V-shaped recovery’—how would you even know?”"

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It’s in Dreams That Americans Are Making Sense of Trump | The New Yorker

"Martha Crawford had her first Trump dream in 2015. In it, a friend who was going out of town on business asked her to check on his apartment while he was away. The address he gave led to an apartment on the top floor of a six-story building where, on the sofa, illuminated by the glare of an enormous television, she said, “Donald Trump, in a large adult diaper, sat sleeping with his chin on his chest.” She watched Trump sleeping for a while, then filled a large metal dog bowl with kibble and slipped it across the table. When Trump awoke, he began gobbling, loudly, with his mouth open. Crawford was alternately “filled with disgust and then flooded with pity.” She ended up buying him a flip phone, “for emergencies only.” This was to be the first in her collection of Trump dreams."

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Understanding the financial crisis that coronavirus could cause - Vox

"We can all come up with idealized, perfect policies that maintain the status quo for three months so we can put the hammer down and then dance our way out. But that’s a completely unrealistic account of how politics operates. Right now, everyone is faced with a sort of prisoner’s dilemma logic: They must advocate for the kind of policies they would normally advocate for, or else someone else will get their policies passed. You’re forced by the dog-eat-dog nature [of] the American political system to engage in that kind of politics."

[htwoopup]

This just gut punched me. While we are all focused of Covid, we should not forget that there are some huge problems of society that we can solve...and it is not just in the US. Maybe, just maybe, the Covid crisis will cause us to rethink our safety net and how we help others. After all, in Canada that is how the Public Health Care system started as a result of epidemic.

When a man loses hope, he loses everything. I can not imagine losing one child much less 5, especially when that loss is would be so avoidable if society would just care about others and provide a framework/ support etc so that all humans can be built up instead of broken down...

Opinion | Who Killed Keylan Knapp? - The New York Times

[guido]

This just gut punched me. While we are all focused of Covid, we should not forget that there are some huge problems of society that we can solve...and it is not just in the US. Maybe, just maybe, the Covid crisis will cause us to rethink our safety net and how we help others. After all, in Canada that is how the Public Health Care system started as a result of epidemic.

When a man loses hope, he loses everything. I can not imagine losing one child much less 5, especially when that loss is would be so avoidable if society would just care about others and provide a framework/ support etc so that all humans can be built up instead of broken down...

Opinion | Who Killed Keylan Knapp? - The New York Times

It is easier to get elected preaching hate than compassion... Such sad times, how did we get to this place?

[ides1056]

It’s in Dreams That Americans Are Making Sense of Trump | The New Yorker

"Martha Crawford had her first Trump dream in 2015. In it, a friend who was going out of town on business asked her to check on his apartment while he was away. The address he gave led to an apartment on the top floor of a six-story building where, on the sofa, illuminated by the glare of an enormous television, she said, “Donald Trump, in a large adult diaper, sat sleeping with his chin on his chest.” She watched Trump sleeping for a while, then filled a large metal dog bowl with kibble and slipped it across the table. When Trump awoke, he began gobbling, loudly, with his mouth open. Crawford was alternately “filled with disgust and then flooded with pity.” She ended up buying him a flip phone, “for emergencies only.” This was to be the first in her collection of Trump dreams."

That's a frigging nightmare.

[ides1056]

This just gut punched me. While we are all focused of Covid, we should not forget that there are some huge problems of society that we can solve...and it is not just in the US. Maybe, just maybe, the Covid crisis will cause us to rethink our safety net and how we help others. After all, in Canada that is how the Public Health Care system started as a result of epidemic.

When a man loses hope, he loses everything. I can not imagine losing one child much less 5, especially when that loss is would be so avoidable if society would just care about others and provide a framework/ support etc so that all humans can be built up instead of broken down...

Opinion | Who Killed Keylan Knapp? - The New York Times

My Amherst magazine just arrived, and I opened it backwards to find the obituary of a classmate I saw last fall in Northampton just before he returned to Hawaii where he had lived for years. We rowed crew together freshman year. I'd seen him at our 35th reunion the prior spring. He was wildly manic so most were giving him a wide berth, but I had a bi-polar Aunt so was pretty comfortable hanging with him. He was trying not to have his first drink the entire evening. Turned out he had done two tours at the addiction treatment facility my daughter works at, knew her by name. His daughter refused to let him walk her down the aisle. He apologized for catching a crab at the Dad Vail Regatta almost forty years ago. It was that kind of talk. He'd had a successful career as a private investment manager. The second time I read the obit I realized he had died October 25, maybe a few weeks after I ran into him last.

Makes no sense.

There is plenty of despair to go around. My daughter works with kids her age that leave treatment and die within weeks. Makes her angry and sad.

A best friend from childhood called six years ago to tell me his daughter was using. They figured it out as she was heading out the door with family silver. His Dad was under secretary of the Army under Reagan. She is still alive, but it's been touch and go and my friend now has a pacemaker. A few years ago he was riding his bike around Sacramento trying to find her in the homeless encampments in town.

Addiction is an equal-opportunity employer.

[mnoble485]

Kudos to your daughter. That kind of job has more disappointments than victories. True story, I was light heartedly voted least likely to succeed from my fellow patients when I was in rehab. On April 28rh I will celebrate 35 years of recovery. There but for the grace of ....

Mike

[ides1056]

Bless you, Mike.

My friend did not want people to know his daughter was using because he was afraid she would not be able to get back into society. I know what the statistics are for recovery- abysmally low- and told him if she beats it she can tell them all to go fuck themselves.

Yes, but for grace...