I've been counting blessings. In fact, there is a post below solely dedicated to that. As a result I think I am emerging from my depressive, negative state of the last couple of months. I actually got revision 3 of my latest manuscript roughed out, so that was promising. I got back to the gym very briefly, until it was shut down again.
In any event, I'll let my blessings post speak for itself. There is a possibility that my imminent 60th birthday is having some negative effect on my psyche, but that's really never been the case with milestone birthdays before. Despite the size of that number, I honestly believe I can still do whatever I want in this world. Or at least, whatever pandemic protocol allows.
[Rant] Blessings
[TV] Sad State of the Toob
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 5
[Tech, Rant] Defending Facebook
Thursday, August 06, 2020
[Rant] Blessings
Amid all my whining over the last couple of months I have tried to keep in mind how immeasurably lucky I am. One side effect of disagreeing with much of the pandemic reaction -- and much of everything in the world, for that matter -- is that people think you are complaining about your own life. Nothing could be further from the truth for me.
The ancient advice to count your blessings hasn't survived the centuries for nothing. It's a good thing to do. Often. Like, every time you open Twitter.
- I have suffered no financial difficulty yet.
- I can work almost seamlessly from home.
- The work I do hasn't taken a huge hit in demand so I am under no urgent risk of losing my job.
- In fact, I'm saving money -- lighter travel expenses, no gym membership, gas purchases down -- I even refinanced my house thanks to the drop in interest rates.
- Even my retirement savings, which I fretted for in the initial market crash, has recovered to almost where it was before.
- I've been able to stay active.
- I've gained a real appreciation for my home, as much as it tasks me.
- I live in a beautiful, upscale, semi-rural area of the sort most people only dream of.
- My home office has a window, my office office doesn't.
- I am amazed at the amount of wildlife surrounding me -- deer, bunnies, chipmunks, woodchucks, toads, snakes, and turkeys have wandered through my backyard, most knocking on the glass to my office window in curiosity.
- Nearby I have seen beautiful cranes, vultures, and even a bald eagle. I have heard foxes yapping in the night. Big, striking black and white dragonflies buzz around everywhere. My flowers are swamped with bumble bees.
- There are probably about a mile or two of maintained trails in my neighborhood that wind through wooded areas and wetlands. I have been going for frequent walks, a thing I never used to do.
- My options for outdoor recreation are equally wonderful. There are endless trails, paved and unpaved for running, roads paved and unpaved for biking, lakes for swimming. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface -- all within a short drive.
The ancient advice to count your blessings hasn't survived the centuries for nothing. It's a good thing to do. Often. Like, every time you open Twitter.
[TV] Sad State of the Toob
TV is bad again. I mean bad in the way of fifty years ago, when we referred to it as a vast wasteland. Game shows have made a comeback, and not game shows like Jeopardy; game shows like contestants fall into a vat of lard over canned laughter and commentary from a smug, insipid host. There are no high concept dramas, nobody seems to think that deeply anymore. There is no humanity in anything; nothing is personal, everything is social, or worse, political. There are no characters, only amalgams of ideologies and shallow habits. There are no timeless themes, only reflections of headlines. Comedy has pretty much ceased to exist; we're really not allowed to laugh at anything anyway.
All this occurred to me as I was watching HBOs latest drama, Perry Mason. For you young'uns, Perry Mason was a courtroom drama show back in the '60s. Mason defended a (falsely accused, of course) client of the week in what was reasonable quality, if highly formulaic, drama for the time. Actually the character goes back to a series of potboilers written by Earle Stanley Gardner in the '30s. HBO's series is supposed to be something of an origin story. We start with Mason as bum, scraping by as a private eye. In the course of the series, the father figure lawyer he works for dies and Mason is compelled to scam his way into passing the bar exam and stepping in as a replacement lawyer for a client that is being railroaded.
It's not a bad show. The production values are far beyond the old TV series, of course. It's a solid attempt at grit and character building in a period drama. It has the correct positive references to alternate sexuality and racial injustice along with the negative views of religion and authority that are required for any show to get greenlit, but they are held in control or at list skippable via fast forward. There is also a correctly formulated amount of luridness to hold attention if the plot can't. I've been watching it so I obviously must like it. But I've been watching it the way I might have watched...oh, I don't know, something from the 70s or the 80s, like Kojack or L.A. Law or something. It's on, I'm familiar with the characters, it's mildly entertaining, it doesn't require much thought or attention. Contrast this to something like Deadwood, or Sopranos, or The Wire, where I was riveted and then immediately rewatched it for any subtleties I'd missed.
I should caveat this with the observation that the universe of TV is huge and global and I am not aware of everything, so there may be gems out there. For the most part, I feel safe saying that the vast wasteland has returned. Or, more accurately, we have returned to it. I miss David Milch.
All this occurred to me as I was watching HBOs latest drama, Perry Mason. For you young'uns, Perry Mason was a courtroom drama show back in the '60s. Mason defended a (falsely accused, of course) client of the week in what was reasonable quality, if highly formulaic, drama for the time. Actually the character goes back to a series of potboilers written by Earle Stanley Gardner in the '30s. HBO's series is supposed to be something of an origin story. We start with Mason as bum, scraping by as a private eye. In the course of the series, the father figure lawyer he works for dies and Mason is compelled to scam his way into passing the bar exam and stepping in as a replacement lawyer for a client that is being railroaded.
It's not a bad show. The production values are far beyond the old TV series, of course. It's a solid attempt at grit and character building in a period drama. It has the correct positive references to alternate sexuality and racial injustice along with the negative views of religion and authority that are required for any show to get greenlit, but they are held in control or at list skippable via fast forward. There is also a correctly formulated amount of luridness to hold attention if the plot can't. I've been watching it so I obviously must like it. But I've been watching it the way I might have watched...oh, I don't know, something from the 70s or the 80s, like Kojack or L.A. Law or something. It's on, I'm familiar with the characters, it's mildly entertaining, it doesn't require much thought or attention. Contrast this to something like Deadwood, or Sopranos, or The Wire, where I was riveted and then immediately rewatched it for any subtleties I'd missed.
I should caveat this with the observation that the universe of TV is huge and global and I am not aware of everything, so there may be gems out there. For the most part, I feel safe saying that the vast wasteland has returned. Or, more accurately, we have returned to it. I miss David Milch.
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 5
All right, I'm going to lay off the doom and gloom social commentary this month. Let's do some quick hits on some interesting news and developments, none of which have to do with masks.
When this whole thing started back in March and everyone was comparing it to the 1918 flu epidemic, I pointed out it was not 1918 anymore. Not only are standards of hygiene superior, but our biotech capabilities were undreamed of back then. This virus had every molecule in it mapped and analyzed before it even became famous. There are 199 vaccines in development, a handful of which are far along. There is even one that you can do at home now if you have some level of medical knowledge. In fact, I would expect that the only thing that prevents us from having a vaccine by year end is incompetent bureaucracy. Given our revealed inability to intelligently assess risk and return and to find the compromises with rules and regulations that are required in extreme circumstances, I wouldn't put it past our regulators and politicians to screw this up.
But there I go getting dark and snide again. I will stop. The point is that it is amazing what our capabilities are and entirely possible that when all is said and done and we look back on this from five years hence, it will be a source of pride. I found this recap of the vaccine research process encouraging.
Also under the heading of tooting my own horn, while the rest of the world was obsessed with the idea that how well you adhered to the prescribed methods -- social distancing, masks, sheltering, etc. -- was explaining all the variation in infection rates, I maintained there was something else, something we hadn't discovered yet. A couple of things have since come to light.
The thing that gave me, and many others, pause was that almost all the cause and effect theories that people had in their heads and were making policy based on, fell apart because there was always data that confounded them -- all suppositions had counterexamples that suggested there was too much margin for error. Eggheads call that heterogeneity of results. Now, humans being human, since we could determine what was going on with certainty, we just made up stories that coincide with our existing prejudices, filtered the data we acknowledged to fit our made-up stories, and got on with our standard hostilities.
There are a couple of important bits of information in this Marginal Revolution post.
First, there have been two major strains of the virus, one significantly more contagious than the other. Which strain is prevalent in a certain area has a huge effect on the rate of infection. South Korea, which was applauded for such a successful response, had almost entirely the less contagious strain. New York had almost entirely the most contagious strain. Perhaps public policy and adherence to it wasn't the crucial element after all.
Second, there is evidence that there is a genetic component to how susceptible you are to infection and the viral load you can carry. And as any genetic component will do, it broadly follows ethnic and racial lines, which makes it nearly taboo to speak of.
This Washington Post story finds other interesting things. Namely that Covid does not appear to progress through the population in a general steady manner like, say, measles. What we now call Superspreaders and Superspreader Events play a large role. They also walk right up to, but do not outright declare, that there may be a genetic component to being a superspreader.
And here is a wonderfully clear and informative article about how the immune system works. Can you work all the information in this article into your own thinking? Does it leave you still believing the other side in the culture war is the cause of all the problems? If so, I don't think objective communication is possible for you.
The point I am trying to make is that if some small percent of the people refuse to wear masks as some sort of silly protest, it may not be making a big difference; it might not be the cause of any of the variations we are seeing in infection rates. Maybe we could dial back the hostilities in this area.
In any event, there were only two ways this was ever going to end. One was to fight it off as best we can until a vaccine is found. The other was to just protect yourself as best you can and wait until it infects through enough people to burn itself out (herd immunity). It looks like we are going for the first alternative. I have high hopes that we can finish the job by the end of the year, although that may be giving our bureaucracy too much credit.
When this whole thing started back in March and everyone was comparing it to the 1918 flu epidemic, I pointed out it was not 1918 anymore. Not only are standards of hygiene superior, but our biotech capabilities were undreamed of back then. This virus had every molecule in it mapped and analyzed before it even became famous. There are 199 vaccines in development, a handful of which are far along. There is even one that you can do at home now if you have some level of medical knowledge. In fact, I would expect that the only thing that prevents us from having a vaccine by year end is incompetent bureaucracy. Given our revealed inability to intelligently assess risk and return and to find the compromises with rules and regulations that are required in extreme circumstances, I wouldn't put it past our regulators and politicians to screw this up.
But there I go getting dark and snide again. I will stop. The point is that it is amazing what our capabilities are and entirely possible that when all is said and done and we look back on this from five years hence, it will be a source of pride. I found this recap of the vaccine research process encouraging.
Also under the heading of tooting my own horn, while the rest of the world was obsessed with the idea that how well you adhered to the prescribed methods -- social distancing, masks, sheltering, etc. -- was explaining all the variation in infection rates, I maintained there was something else, something we hadn't discovered yet. A couple of things have since come to light.
The thing that gave me, and many others, pause was that almost all the cause and effect theories that people had in their heads and were making policy based on, fell apart because there was always data that confounded them -- all suppositions had counterexamples that suggested there was too much margin for error. Eggheads call that heterogeneity of results. Now, humans being human, since we could determine what was going on with certainty, we just made up stories that coincide with our existing prejudices, filtered the data we acknowledged to fit our made-up stories, and got on with our standard hostilities.
There are a couple of important bits of information in this Marginal Revolution post.
First, there have been two major strains of the virus, one significantly more contagious than the other. Which strain is prevalent in a certain area has a huge effect on the rate of infection. South Korea, which was applauded for such a successful response, had almost entirely the less contagious strain. New York had almost entirely the most contagious strain. Perhaps public policy and adherence to it wasn't the crucial element after all.
Second, there is evidence that there is a genetic component to how susceptible you are to infection and the viral load you can carry. And as any genetic component will do, it broadly follows ethnic and racial lines, which makes it nearly taboo to speak of.
This Washington Post story finds other interesting things. Namely that Covid does not appear to progress through the population in a general steady manner like, say, measles. What we now call Superspreaders and Superspreader Events play a large role. They also walk right up to, but do not outright declare, that there may be a genetic component to being a superspreader.
Scientists suspect these "super-emitters" may have much higher levels of the virus in their bodies (viral load) than others, or may release them by talking, shouting or singing in a different way from most people. Research based on the flu, which involved college students blowing into a tube, showed that a small percentage tended to emit smaller particles known as aerosols more than others. These particles tend to hang or float, and move with the flow of air -- and therefore can go much farther and last longer than larger droplets.Furthermore they note that a key to accelerator to superspreading is HVAC. To me that implies the best bang for the buck might be investment in air filtration systems. Essentially putting a mask on your air vents.
And here is a wonderfully clear and informative article about how the immune system works. Can you work all the information in this article into your own thinking? Does it leave you still believing the other side in the culture war is the cause of all the problems? If so, I don't think objective communication is possible for you.
The point I am trying to make is that if some small percent of the people refuse to wear masks as some sort of silly protest, it may not be making a big difference; it might not be the cause of any of the variations we are seeing in infection rates. Maybe we could dial back the hostilities in this area.
In any event, there were only two ways this was ever going to end. One was to fight it off as best we can until a vaccine is found. The other was to just protect yourself as best you can and wait until it infects through enough people to burn itself out (herd immunity). It looks like we are going for the first alternative. I have high hopes that we can finish the job by the end of the year, although that may be giving our bureaucracy too much credit.
[Tech, Rant] Defending Facebook
I'm going to take a brief moment to say something nice about Facebook. Stand back.
Actually two nice things. First, Zuckerberg has done an admirable job of staying neutral in the culture wars. I know there are cadres on either side of the fence that think staying neutral makes you the enemy. I'm sure they both leverage Facebook's neutrality to forward that belief.
The second thing occurred to me while reading this very insightful Scholar's Stage essay about the lost world of internet forums and why Twitter is so awful. I would argue the Facebook Groups are the new internet forums. Like the old forums access is controlled. Only people involved in the special interest get themselves into the associated group, so there is no broad-based piling-on by the wider web. Group admins can be as ruthless as they want, because they can't kick people off Facebook, only out of their group. If folks think they have been treated unfairly, they can just start their own damn group, but their access to Facebook is unchanged. (This happens usually when you get a group member who won't shut up about politics.)
I've become a real fan of Facebook Groups and belong to a number of them. I highly encourage it to keep your online life marginally sane.
While I'm thinking of it, let me add a third good thing about Facebook: the ad model. The banner ads down the right side of the webpage don't count; they are easily ignored and I don't think you get them on mobile. I mean the ones they pop into your news feed. They do an excellent job of matching them with your needs and interests. I know a lot of people freak out about how this is an invasion of privacy. I think those fears are overwrought, but that's a topic for another post. Since I get Facebook for free, like TV, I expect commercials, but at least I get commercials of the sort I am interested in. And if I don't like something, blocking it going forward is about a 10 second operation. I actually get ads in my feed I want and frequently click on, which is something I never would have predicted 10 years ago.
And now, with all the controversy about TikTok being spyware, they just released a competing product, which was a truly sharp move. Facebook is for old folks now, but they could snag the young audience if it becomes a default replacement if TikTok is banned.
Actually two nice things. First, Zuckerberg has done an admirable job of staying neutral in the culture wars. I know there are cadres on either side of the fence that think staying neutral makes you the enemy. I'm sure they both leverage Facebook's neutrality to forward that belief.
The second thing occurred to me while reading this very insightful Scholar's Stage essay about the lost world of internet forums and why Twitter is so awful. I would argue the Facebook Groups are the new internet forums. Like the old forums access is controlled. Only people involved in the special interest get themselves into the associated group, so there is no broad-based piling-on by the wider web. Group admins can be as ruthless as they want, because they can't kick people off Facebook, only out of their group. If folks think they have been treated unfairly, they can just start their own damn group, but their access to Facebook is unchanged. (This happens usually when you get a group member who won't shut up about politics.)
I've become a real fan of Facebook Groups and belong to a number of them. I highly encourage it to keep your online life marginally sane.
While I'm thinking of it, let me add a third good thing about Facebook: the ad model. The banner ads down the right side of the webpage don't count; they are easily ignored and I don't think you get them on mobile. I mean the ones they pop into your news feed. They do an excellent job of matching them with your needs and interests. I know a lot of people freak out about how this is an invasion of privacy. I think those fears are overwrought, but that's a topic for another post. Since I get Facebook for free, like TV, I expect commercials, but at least I get commercials of the sort I am interested in. And if I don't like something, blocking it going forward is about a 10 second operation. I actually get ads in my feed I want and frequently click on, which is something I never would have predicted 10 years ago.
And now, with all the controversy about TikTok being spyware, they just released a competing product, which was a truly sharp move. Facebook is for old folks now, but they could snag the young audience if it becomes a default replacement if TikTok is banned.
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
The Month That Was - June 2020
I don't know if you really want to read anything I wrote this month. It's just rants, at points nearly incoherent. This month has been especially trying in not letting the world get the best of me. I hope it is a low point and things swing up from here. My only hope is to continue to count my blessings, which I must remember are quite numerous. I hope next month to be in a more positive state of mind.
[Movies, TV, Music, Good Links] Entertainment Consumables
[Rant] The Late Slate Star Codex
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 4
[Movies, TV, Music, Good Links] Entertainment Consumables
[Rant] The Late Slate Star Codex
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 4
[Movies, TV, Music, Good Links] Entertainment Consumables
Quick hits on sound and vision.
- Knives Out is weird. A solid drawing room style murder mystery, it made some waves because people assigned it socio-political meaning. I suppose there was possibly that intent, I don't know. I do know it was a very impressively-plotted mystery, speaking as someone who understands how difficult that is. What I think ultimately holds it back is the casting. There were a lot of high-end names associated with this, none of whom were particularly believable in their roles -- especially Daniel Craig. They do their level best but none transcend their miscasting. Not a bad bit of entertainment, but ultimately little more than a curiosity.
- Midway -- There have been two movies about the battle of Midway, one in 1976 and one in 2019. Both have been less than mediocre. This latest one has little to no character development, the pilots were so undifferentiated I couldn't remember why I was supposed to care about whom. Lip service to the wives back home was empty. Even the action scenes were unaffecting. It was mostly vanilla dramatizations of commonly known events. Skip this one. It's a shame. The Battle of Midway deserves a more Band of Brothers-y treatment.
- Theme Time Radio Hour -- Radio show, or perhaps a podcast(?), hosted by Bob Dylan as a sort of old school DJ. I've been working my way through the episodes. Dylan reaches way back, often as far back as the '30s, to find songs to match the theme. It's a good antidote to standard broadcasting or machine formed playlists.
- Sleep With Me, I may have mentioned this podcast before, but I've recently gone back to it to help me chill. Essentially it is a guy droning on, telling rambling stories, or absent-mindedly recapping TV episodes in a meandering, monotonous kind of way. If you are trying to follow the narrative, you are doing it wrong. It is amiable and aimless with the intent that it lingers at the edge of your conscious mind and eases you into sleep. It absolutely works for me.
- Perry Mason - the latest series from HBO. Old folks will remember Perry Mason as a TV lawyer played by Raymond Burr in the '50s and '60s. Here we go back to his origin as a skid row private eye in the '30s. The effect is a bit strained, as if everything was laboring to send a message or to make an important point. I also don't know if I buy Matthew Rhys as the lead. It's full of darkly motivated characters, as noirish as it gets, but feels a little too inorganic. Still, we're only three episodes in. If it pans out I may comment more.
- Wendover Productions -- Not strictly "entertainment", this is a YouTube channel that cranks out 15 minute videos explaining how some key and complex aspects of commerce work. How Airports make (or lose) money. How long-haul trucking works. The thing here is that these are short and to the point, versus, say, a Discovery Channel show that has to fill in 30-60 minutes. Nothing revelatory, just keenly interesting to those with active and inquisitive minds.
[Rant] The Late Slate Star Codex
I'd provide a link here to one of the finest websites ever, Slate Star Codex, but the author took it down in anticipation of having his real name published in the New York Times. A bit of explanation is in order.
Slate Star Codex is the blog of Scott Alexander (a pseudonym), a practicing psychiatrist and amatuer philosopher (I guess you'd call it). He wrote with great clarity, not just in his field of psychiatry but in book reviews and general commentary and was even skilled at fiction. He would deep dive into commonly held beliefs, by which I mean he would pull apart the research behind them, often discovering very tenuous bases in fact. He would dig into commentary until he finally reached the assumptions at the firmament. Honestly, if for some reason I chose to try to make this blog into something of enduring value, I would want to be just like his.
Needless to say, his blog became quite popular and influential in certain circles. This drew the attention of the New York Times who wanted to profile it. In the course of their research they discovered Scott Alexander's real name and intended to publish it as part of the article.
Now. Scott has any number of political beliefs, although it would be hard to pigeon-hole him as right or left. Also, whenever discussing them, which is a rarity, he always gives the impression that he knows they are beliefs and not undebatable truths. And he always gives the impression that, were someone to demonstrate an error in his thinking, he would change his thinking. (Imagine that!) All that is to say that no reasonable person would take gross moral umbrage with Scott's beliefs. We are not, however, reasonable people.
First, as a psychiatrist, it's incredibly important that he is able to maintain personal distance from his clients. Exposure would potentially destroy that. Second, and he doesn't outright state this, but I suspect there is a strong possibility of him losing professional contacts or being outright cancelled if it turns out he had come to an unfashionable conclusion on a topic that angered the wrong people. So he removed the site. Here it is from the horse's mouth.
Absolutely no good comes of this. I work very hard to try to understand the motivations of both, or all, sides in controversy or conflict, but I see no cogent motivation for the NYT to do this. They are claiming it's a matter of journalistic ethics, but that holds no water. No harm would come from withholding Scott's real name (and the NYT has a long history of being flexible on journalistic standards).
I suppose the good news is that it's not going unresisted. There is a great deal of displeasure being expressed across the web and some within the NYT. As respected as Scott is, I do hope there will be consequences for the NYT. Were I important enough, I would, at a minimum, refuse them access and quotes. I would also no longer link to their website. (Yes, I can and will do that but it's meaningless in my case.) The article hasn't been published yet so maybe NYT will back off.
I have for years been in the camp of claiming the world is, on average, getting better, however slowly and haphazardly it may be happening. As little degradations like this build over time, it's harder and harder for me to maintain that optimism.
Slate Star Codex is the blog of Scott Alexander (a pseudonym), a practicing psychiatrist and amatuer philosopher (I guess you'd call it). He wrote with great clarity, not just in his field of psychiatry but in book reviews and general commentary and was even skilled at fiction. He would deep dive into commonly held beliefs, by which I mean he would pull apart the research behind them, often discovering very tenuous bases in fact. He would dig into commentary until he finally reached the assumptions at the firmament. Honestly, if for some reason I chose to try to make this blog into something of enduring value, I would want to be just like his.
Needless to say, his blog became quite popular and influential in certain circles. This drew the attention of the New York Times who wanted to profile it. In the course of their research they discovered Scott Alexander's real name and intended to publish it as part of the article.
Now. Scott has any number of political beliefs, although it would be hard to pigeon-hole him as right or left. Also, whenever discussing them, which is a rarity, he always gives the impression that he knows they are beliefs and not undebatable truths. And he always gives the impression that, were someone to demonstrate an error in his thinking, he would change his thinking. (Imagine that!) All that is to say that no reasonable person would take gross moral umbrage with Scott's beliefs. We are not, however, reasonable people.
First, as a psychiatrist, it's incredibly important that he is able to maintain personal distance from his clients. Exposure would potentially destroy that. Second, and he doesn't outright state this, but I suspect there is a strong possibility of him losing professional contacts or being outright cancelled if it turns out he had come to an unfashionable conclusion on a topic that angered the wrong people. So he removed the site. Here it is from the horse's mouth.
Absolutely no good comes of this. I work very hard to try to understand the motivations of both, or all, sides in controversy or conflict, but I see no cogent motivation for the NYT to do this. They are claiming it's a matter of journalistic ethics, but that holds no water. No harm would come from withholding Scott's real name (and the NYT has a long history of being flexible on journalistic standards).
I suppose the good news is that it's not going unresisted. There is a great deal of displeasure being expressed across the web and some within the NYT. As respected as Scott is, I do hope there will be consequences for the NYT. Were I important enough, I would, at a minimum, refuse them access and quotes. I would also no longer link to their website. (Yes, I can and will do that but it's meaningless in my case.) The article hasn't been published yet so maybe NYT will back off.
I have for years been in the camp of claiming the world is, on average, getting better, however slowly and haphazardly it may be happening. As little degradations like this build over time, it's harder and harder for me to maintain that optimism.
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 4
At this point it's mostly about the masks. Your identity is defined by how you feel about masks. Are you careful to wear one everywhere and call out those who don't? Do you not wear one unless told to? Are you a slave to our cultural elites or a nazi? Those are your two choices.
Two sentences: (1)There are not really any replicable and peer-reviewed studies that show masks do any good and note that, early on, we were told they were useless. (2) There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that they do work, and frankly it scores high on the common sense test. Which of those carries more weight with you depends on whether you are a slave to cultural elites or a nazi.
I don't know which is right so I have to do some risk evaluation. I default to wearing the mask indoors unless there is a good reason not to and I am pretty solidly distanced from others. I don't wear the mask in my gym, but it's less a gym than a personal training studio where clients are kept strictly away from each other, the trainers all wear masks, and the equipment is cleaned psychotically, and I need to breathe freely to work out. I didn't wear the mask the handful of times I dined out once I was seated, but on the way to and from the table I did. That's about it. Why do I do this? Not because I think I'd be a nazi if I didn't. It's just risk/reward evaluation.
If wearing the mask saves lives then I'll be glad I wore it. If it doesn't, well, I have been inconvenienced for no good reason. Seems like a good trade to make. Also, I try to be polite. If a place of business requests I wear a mask I do, for the same reason I wear pants. Nevertheless, if you are wandering around without a mask, I don't think that makes you a nazi. You just have a different risk profile than I have. If you are wandering around without pants I might take issue.
More worrisome to me is that political leaders have completely undermined their moral authority to put the brakes on any reopening by supporting massive public protests and rallies. I have the feeling they can make all the decrees they want, be it about masks or anything else but nobody is going to follow them and any attempt at enforcement by the demoralized police forces will be futile. However you feel about the protests, the fact is our leaders made an implied statement that if you really feel strongly about something, you don't need to follow our restrictions.
Here in Michigan, the governor lost (then won) another case. An association of gym owners sued to have the executive order keeping them closed lifted. They won. There is a lot of misrepresentation of what this actually meant, but essentially it is along the same lines as the suit brought by the Rebel Barber of Owosso, which I discussed last month. The courts were not allowing the closing of specific classes of businesses without evidence that the act of the business itself is especially risky. Something to keep in mind here: the courts were not saying gyms are safe, they were saying if you want to treat gyms separately from other businesses you have to show evidence that the acts of business that gyms are involved in are risky -- i.e. lifting weights, running on a treadmill, etc. This is roughly the same thing that happened with the Rebel Barber of Owosso. Also, this didn't mean gyms can open and run as before, it means they can open if they can find ways to adhere to the governor's broader safety guidelines. Essentially, the courts -- both a fed court in the gym case and a State court in the barber case -- seemed to be saying you can't single out certain businesses for different policies without evidence. Anyone who can adhere to safety guidelines should be allowed to open. Then, of course, the Governor won a last minute appeal, and so one day before opening, gyms found out they had to stay closed.
I have been saying that openings or closings should be targeted based on ability to implement safety protocols not by type of business for months just as a matter of good policy, so obviously I'm on board with the original court decision. Before anyone gets their jimmies rustled over this, I freely acknowledge that my opinion means nothing and my words will not convince anyone of anything. Yours too.
A couple of months ago I suggested that we are now a nation of people eagerly hoping that we can be the ones to say "I told you so" 6 months from now. You can see this gearing up with the reaction to re-openings and potential second waves. There are four possibilities:
State reopens fast / no second wave
State reopens fast / second wave occurs
State reopens slow / no second wave
State reopens slow / second wave occurs
I can pretty much guarantee every one of these will happen somewhere. Just point to the States or regions that justify your position and recite the appropriate: "I told you so":
State reopens fast / no second wave: I told you the restrictions did no good
State reopens fast / second wave occurs: I told you it was reckless to lift restrictions
State reopens slow / no second wave: I told you the restrictions worked
State reopens slow / second wave occurs: I told you the restrictions didn't matter
Of course, you know you are under no obligation to word it so reasonably. And feel free to add the appropriate insult to the group you are targeting.
As far as what we can believe, well, who knows? We've seen charts indicating infections are soaring with no sort of acknowledgement, except the finest of print, that it may be due to (hushed whisper) the mass protests since it seems the increase in cases may be mostly among the young. Conversely, the death rate dropping is another indicator that the most vulnerable are keeping safe. None of this is proven or disproven so you get to make it mean you've been right all along. If you're a nazi this just shows how wrong it was to quarantine the masses; if you're a slave to the cultural elites it shows how the nazis have made things worse by not wearing masks. The CDC now thinks that for every known infection there are as many as 10 unrecorded infections. Does that confirm or contradict your feelings? The answer to that will tell you whether the CDC is speaking the truth.
Here is a complicated article on something called T-cell immunity, which suggests we are not yet clear on how resistant people already are to COVID19. Here is an even more complicated Twitter thread on new things we have just begun to model about herd immunity. Here is another complex Twitter thread explaining that while the number of known infections have eye-poppingly soared, the number of deaths has been decreasing on both a relative and absolute basis, even considering the time lag between reports and deaths. Can you incorporate these into your feelings? Can you even understand what they imply? I'm not sure I can, but maybe you're smarter than me.
As far as I can tell, Tyler Cowen may be the only one besides me who is overwhelmed by how inconsistent and random outbreaks and infection rates seem to be. The reaction when you point this out is for someone to propose a possible cause of some dichotomy, usually a solution in which that someone was right along. This misses the point. There are so many different dichotomies, anomalies, and outright contradictions that it seems like there is something we are missing, something important.
The fact remains we simply do not know enough yet to draw anything but the broadest conclusions. In this atmosphere, we need to just do the best we can, which we are probably doing in our own haphazard, inefficient, and outright hostile way. Given the FACT of our uncertainty you would think folks would be somewhat understanding of people on the other side of an argument. You would think wrongly.
I once heard suggested that whenever someone expresses an opinion they should be required to put a percentage on it as to their certainty. Good idea, but it would be futile. Everyone would just put 100% and accuse anyone who disagreed of ignorance and stupidity.
Yeah, I'm a little down on humanity these days.
Two sentences: (1)There are not really any replicable and peer-reviewed studies that show masks do any good and note that, early on, we were told they were useless. (2) There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that they do work, and frankly it scores high on the common sense test. Which of those carries more weight with you depends on whether you are a slave to cultural elites or a nazi.
I don't know which is right so I have to do some risk evaluation. I default to wearing the mask indoors unless there is a good reason not to and I am pretty solidly distanced from others. I don't wear the mask in my gym, but it's less a gym than a personal training studio where clients are kept strictly away from each other, the trainers all wear masks, and the equipment is cleaned psychotically, and I need to breathe freely to work out. I didn't wear the mask the handful of times I dined out once I was seated, but on the way to and from the table I did. That's about it. Why do I do this? Not because I think I'd be a nazi if I didn't. It's just risk/reward evaluation.
If wearing the mask saves lives then I'll be glad I wore it. If it doesn't, well, I have been inconvenienced for no good reason. Seems like a good trade to make. Also, I try to be polite. If a place of business requests I wear a mask I do, for the same reason I wear pants. Nevertheless, if you are wandering around without a mask, I don't think that makes you a nazi. You just have a different risk profile than I have. If you are wandering around without pants I might take issue.
More worrisome to me is that political leaders have completely undermined their moral authority to put the brakes on any reopening by supporting massive public protests and rallies. I have the feeling they can make all the decrees they want, be it about masks or anything else but nobody is going to follow them and any attempt at enforcement by the demoralized police forces will be futile. However you feel about the protests, the fact is our leaders made an implied statement that if you really feel strongly about something, you don't need to follow our restrictions.
Here in Michigan, the governor lost (then won) another case. An association of gym owners sued to have the executive order keeping them closed lifted. They won. There is a lot of misrepresentation of what this actually meant, but essentially it is along the same lines as the suit brought by the Rebel Barber of Owosso, which I discussed last month. The courts were not allowing the closing of specific classes of businesses without evidence that the act of the business itself is especially risky. Something to keep in mind here: the courts were not saying gyms are safe, they were saying if you want to treat gyms separately from other businesses you have to show evidence that the acts of business that gyms are involved in are risky -- i.e. lifting weights, running on a treadmill, etc. This is roughly the same thing that happened with the Rebel Barber of Owosso. Also, this didn't mean gyms can open and run as before, it means they can open if they can find ways to adhere to the governor's broader safety guidelines. Essentially, the courts -- both a fed court in the gym case and a State court in the barber case -- seemed to be saying you can't single out certain businesses for different policies without evidence. Anyone who can adhere to safety guidelines should be allowed to open. Then, of course, the Governor won a last minute appeal, and so one day before opening, gyms found out they had to stay closed.
I have been saying that openings or closings should be targeted based on ability to implement safety protocols not by type of business for months just as a matter of good policy, so obviously I'm on board with the original court decision. Before anyone gets their jimmies rustled over this, I freely acknowledge that my opinion means nothing and my words will not convince anyone of anything. Yours too.
A couple of months ago I suggested that we are now a nation of people eagerly hoping that we can be the ones to say "I told you so" 6 months from now. You can see this gearing up with the reaction to re-openings and potential second waves. There are four possibilities:
State reopens fast / no second wave
State reopens fast / second wave occurs
State reopens slow / no second wave
State reopens slow / second wave occurs
I can pretty much guarantee every one of these will happen somewhere. Just point to the States or regions that justify your position and recite the appropriate: "I told you so":
State reopens fast / no second wave: I told you the restrictions did no good
State reopens fast / second wave occurs: I told you it was reckless to lift restrictions
State reopens slow / no second wave: I told you the restrictions worked
State reopens slow / second wave occurs: I told you the restrictions didn't matter
Of course, you know you are under no obligation to word it so reasonably. And feel free to add the appropriate insult to the group you are targeting.
As far as what we can believe, well, who knows? We've seen charts indicating infections are soaring with no sort of acknowledgement, except the finest of print, that it may be due to (hushed whisper) the mass protests since it seems the increase in cases may be mostly among the young. Conversely, the death rate dropping is another indicator that the most vulnerable are keeping safe. None of this is proven or disproven so you get to make it mean you've been right all along. If you're a nazi this just shows how wrong it was to quarantine the masses; if you're a slave to the cultural elites it shows how the nazis have made things worse by not wearing masks. The CDC now thinks that for every known infection there are as many as 10 unrecorded infections. Does that confirm or contradict your feelings? The answer to that will tell you whether the CDC is speaking the truth.
Here is a complicated article on something called T-cell immunity, which suggests we are not yet clear on how resistant people already are to COVID19. Here is an even more complicated Twitter thread on new things we have just begun to model about herd immunity. Here is another complex Twitter thread explaining that while the number of known infections have eye-poppingly soared, the number of deaths has been decreasing on both a relative and absolute basis, even considering the time lag between reports and deaths. Can you incorporate these into your feelings? Can you even understand what they imply? I'm not sure I can, but maybe you're smarter than me.
As far as I can tell, Tyler Cowen may be the only one besides me who is overwhelmed by how inconsistent and random outbreaks and infection rates seem to be. The reaction when you point this out is for someone to propose a possible cause of some dichotomy, usually a solution in which that someone was right along. This misses the point. There are so many different dichotomies, anomalies, and outright contradictions that it seems like there is something we are missing, something important.
The fact remains we simply do not know enough yet to draw anything but the broadest conclusions. In this atmosphere, we need to just do the best we can, which we are probably doing in our own haphazard, inefficient, and outright hostile way. Given the FACT of our uncertainty you would think folks would be somewhat understanding of people on the other side of an argument. You would think wrongly.
I once heard suggested that whenever someone expresses an opinion they should be required to put a percentage on it as to their certainty. Good idea, but it would be futile. Everyone would just put 100% and accuse anyone who disagreed of ignorance and stupidity.
Yeah, I'm a little down on humanity these days.
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
The Month that Was - May 2020
Well, as promised, I got the hell out of Dodge. I took a few days down in Houston as Texas was well ahead of Michigan in easing restrictions. I ate out. Got my hair cut. Spent toasty days by the pool. It was heaven-adjacent. Next I need to get down to Florida to see my brother.
What I really need to do, above all else, is stop procrastinating on my fiction writing. You would think this situation was the perfect excuse to really kick in the afterburners on my book, but instead I have been using it as an excuse to watch more dumb movies and peruse more social media. This must stop above all else.
[TV, Sports] Tube Notes, Lonely at the Top
[Movies] Flick Check, A Couple to Skip
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 3
What I really need to do, above all else, is stop procrastinating on my fiction writing. You would think this situation was the perfect excuse to really kick in the afterburners on my book, but instead I have been using it as an excuse to watch more dumb movies and peruse more social media. This must stop above all else.
[TV, Sports] Tube Notes, Lonely at the Top
[Movies] Flick Check, A Couple to Skip
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 3
[TV, Sports] Toob Notes, Lonely a the Top
Two documentaries featuring the best ever athletes at their sport came out on ESPN.
Last Dance
The story of the rise of Michael Jordan and the stormy times with the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls. It was too long and with too much filler. It was also way too worshipful, but that's not surprising since it's motivator is Bill Simmons who is the author of the terrific Book of Basketball and almost certainly the biggest basketball fan in history.
There was a time when I was a basketball fan. I loved the NBA in the Bird/Magic era. I would often watch entire double-headers and I still hear the NBA on CBS jingle when I think of it. Of course, I followed the Pistons back-to-back championship teams who everyone else hated, and rightly so. They were truly thugs on the court, but they were our thugs. (That's lame at best and shameful at worst.)
Michael Jordan never interested me. I hated the fawning he got, no matter how much he deserved it. I hated the media saturation. Coming from this era of great competition between Magic and Bird followed by the home team championships we go into the era where it not only was just about one team, but about one person that caused me to sour on the NBA.
In any event, I learned a couple of things from this documentary. First, I never knew how much conflict there was on those Bulls teams, not just with Bulls management but also among the players themselves. The other thing I noticed was Michael Jordan's intelligence. He had much more shaded views of events than I would have imagined. He seems very self-aware and thoughtful about his actions during those times. The extent to which he is regretful about anything is never explored although it can be read between the lines in some cases. Still, there is no mention of gambling or the less laudable second comeback.
At ten hour-long episodes it would have benefitted from some more judicious editing. It could have been at least 30% shorter.
Lance
The Lance Armstrong documentary is more economical, covering two two-hour episodes. Now that all the lawsuits have been settled; Lance comes clean about his actions and feelings. It is anything but worshipful, and quite stark on that matter. At the outset the interviewer asks Lance if he is going to tell the truth, and Lance responds that he will tell "my truth". Well, then.
We all know the outlines of Lance's story. Highlighted here are many scenes from his youth, his pre-cancer youth. He was a real prick. Think of the kind of prickishness that many young people display and amplify it by his level of talent and there you go. I always knew he was a prick, I just didn't know how bad.
But the real meat here is following him deeper and deeper into his lie. More and more people have to be destroyed. In retrospect Lance regrets most of the harm he's caused. Most. There are some people he still feels are worthy of his wrath -- Floyd Landis in particular. He still feels victimized by inequities in how juiced cyclists are treated -- some are still loved, others trashed. And, of course, whatever his cycling legacy, there is no denying the good Livestrong foundation has done.
All said and done, these two documentaries (Lance being far superior) really haven't changed the way I think about their subjects. I disliked the fawning of Jordan when he was playing and I can't see anything in the fawning Last Dance to change my mind. I saw Lance Armstrong's downfall as a Greek tragedy of hubris and I see it even more so after Lance.
A more interesting question to me is, is it a good thing to be the best? It might seem that way, but as I look at these two documentaries, I see some terrible aspects to it. Jordan does a good job of keeping his family out of it so it's hard to tell about his relationships with them (I know his marriages have been stormy, but that's not unusual). With respect to his friends, you see people like Ahmad Rashard and a couple of others but what are those friendships actually like? What does it mean for them to be a friend Michael Jordan? Given the realities of the situation, the nature of the differences in their lives, are they really friends or orbiters. Another way of putting it is given Michael's stature and position in the world, is it possible to just be a friend of his or are there other constraints and requirements? Can you really see yourself as having an equitable relationship with Michael? I cannot say whether a "friendship" with Michael is rewarding in the way most friendships are. Nor can I speculate on whether being his son or daughter allows for the traditional family rewards. It may be better or worse, but I strongly suspect it's quite different.
I can pretty much guarantee that were costs to being Lance Armstrong's son. He tells the story of defending his father during his 'tween years -- and if you know 'tween boys, you know how brutal that would be -- only to have his father come out and admit the lies. Unlike the speculation with Jordan, Lance, and Lance, is upfront about the costs to the people around him. Even absent the "disgrace", it's clear the Lance's relationships are affected by his Lance-ness. One of the final quotes from a long time acquaintance is that he has been Lance's friend for decades and "I still don't know if I love him or hate him."
Michael is rich, of course. Lance was, but is less so now and doesn't seem to have strong prospects. Both experienced boundless glory. One is still famous, the other infamous. But what of the value of their lives.
Let's think 50-60 years out. They will be mostly forgotten as people, just the statistics and outlines of their stories will be left and known only to those who take an esoteric interest in their respective sports. As much as we elevate athletes, they are, in essence, entertainers; creators of ephemeral exhilaration. There is value in that, however fleeting. There is, of course, value in the charitable work they have both done. Michael, as Chairman of the Charlotte Hornets, keeps a large business running and makes payroll, which is an underrated source value.
At my age, I have come to the conclusion that the value of your life is in how much you've enhanced the lives of the people you care about and it would be easy to say that the added costs of your glory to those close to you are too high and swamp the benefits. But that would be to discount the value you have, or could have, provided to strangers. As I started this post I was assuming I would come to the conclusion that the personality types who have that level of competitive drive are ultimately toxic for those around them and so it would be more of a curse than anything else, but now I am not so sure. I think if you have that level of competitiveness in you and you do not have the gifts to achieve it, that might be another story. That strikes me as a recipe for sociopathology. If you do actually achieve that level of eliteness, it seems like the pluses you can offer to the world might -- might -- outweigh the struggles of those around you (and yourself).
Back to the documentaries, take Last Dance with a grain of salt. Lance is an all time great character study. Both are worth watching.
Addendum: Some have outright accused the Last Dance of being rife with lies. Maybe an entire shaker of salt is in order.
Last Dance
The story of the rise of Michael Jordan and the stormy times with the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls. It was too long and with too much filler. It was also way too worshipful, but that's not surprising since it's motivator is Bill Simmons who is the author of the terrific Book of Basketball and almost certainly the biggest basketball fan in history.
There was a time when I was a basketball fan. I loved the NBA in the Bird/Magic era. I would often watch entire double-headers and I still hear the NBA on CBS jingle when I think of it. Of course, I followed the Pistons back-to-back championship teams who everyone else hated, and rightly so. They were truly thugs on the court, but they were our thugs. (That's lame at best and shameful at worst.)
Michael Jordan never interested me. I hated the fawning he got, no matter how much he deserved it. I hated the media saturation. Coming from this era of great competition between Magic and Bird followed by the home team championships we go into the era where it not only was just about one team, but about one person that caused me to sour on the NBA.
In any event, I learned a couple of things from this documentary. First, I never knew how much conflict there was on those Bulls teams, not just with Bulls management but also among the players themselves. The other thing I noticed was Michael Jordan's intelligence. He had much more shaded views of events than I would have imagined. He seems very self-aware and thoughtful about his actions during those times. The extent to which he is regretful about anything is never explored although it can be read between the lines in some cases. Still, there is no mention of gambling or the less laudable second comeback.
At ten hour-long episodes it would have benefitted from some more judicious editing. It could have been at least 30% shorter.
Lance
The Lance Armstrong documentary is more economical, covering two two-hour episodes. Now that all the lawsuits have been settled; Lance comes clean about his actions and feelings. It is anything but worshipful, and quite stark on that matter. At the outset the interviewer asks Lance if he is going to tell the truth, and Lance responds that he will tell "my truth". Well, then.
We all know the outlines of Lance's story. Highlighted here are many scenes from his youth, his pre-cancer youth. He was a real prick. Think of the kind of prickishness that many young people display and amplify it by his level of talent and there you go. I always knew he was a prick, I just didn't know how bad.
But the real meat here is following him deeper and deeper into his lie. More and more people have to be destroyed. In retrospect Lance regrets most of the harm he's caused. Most. There are some people he still feels are worthy of his wrath -- Floyd Landis in particular. He still feels victimized by inequities in how juiced cyclists are treated -- some are still loved, others trashed. And, of course, whatever his cycling legacy, there is no denying the good Livestrong foundation has done.
All said and done, these two documentaries (Lance being far superior) really haven't changed the way I think about their subjects. I disliked the fawning of Jordan when he was playing and I can't see anything in the fawning Last Dance to change my mind. I saw Lance Armstrong's downfall as a Greek tragedy of hubris and I see it even more so after Lance.
A more interesting question to me is, is it a good thing to be the best? It might seem that way, but as I look at these two documentaries, I see some terrible aspects to it. Jordan does a good job of keeping his family out of it so it's hard to tell about his relationships with them (I know his marriages have been stormy, but that's not unusual). With respect to his friends, you see people like Ahmad Rashard and a couple of others but what are those friendships actually like? What does it mean for them to be a friend Michael Jordan? Given the realities of the situation, the nature of the differences in their lives, are they really friends or orbiters. Another way of putting it is given Michael's stature and position in the world, is it possible to just be a friend of his or are there other constraints and requirements? Can you really see yourself as having an equitable relationship with Michael? I cannot say whether a "friendship" with Michael is rewarding in the way most friendships are. Nor can I speculate on whether being his son or daughter allows for the traditional family rewards. It may be better or worse, but I strongly suspect it's quite different.
I can pretty much guarantee that were costs to being Lance Armstrong's son. He tells the story of defending his father during his 'tween years -- and if you know 'tween boys, you know how brutal that would be -- only to have his father come out and admit the lies. Unlike the speculation with Jordan, Lance, and Lance, is upfront about the costs to the people around him. Even absent the "disgrace", it's clear the Lance's relationships are affected by his Lance-ness. One of the final quotes from a long time acquaintance is that he has been Lance's friend for decades and "I still don't know if I love him or hate him."
Michael is rich, of course. Lance was, but is less so now and doesn't seem to have strong prospects. Both experienced boundless glory. One is still famous, the other infamous. But what of the value of their lives.
Let's think 50-60 years out. They will be mostly forgotten as people, just the statistics and outlines of their stories will be left and known only to those who take an esoteric interest in their respective sports. As much as we elevate athletes, they are, in essence, entertainers; creators of ephemeral exhilaration. There is value in that, however fleeting. There is, of course, value in the charitable work they have both done. Michael, as Chairman of the Charlotte Hornets, keeps a large business running and makes payroll, which is an underrated source value.
At my age, I have come to the conclusion that the value of your life is in how much you've enhanced the lives of the people you care about and it would be easy to say that the added costs of your glory to those close to you are too high and swamp the benefits. But that would be to discount the value you have, or could have, provided to strangers. As I started this post I was assuming I would come to the conclusion that the personality types who have that level of competitive drive are ultimately toxic for those around them and so it would be more of a curse than anything else, but now I am not so sure. I think if you have that level of competitiveness in you and you do not have the gifts to achieve it, that might be another story. That strikes me as a recipe for sociopathology. If you do actually achieve that level of eliteness, it seems like the pluses you can offer to the world might -- might -- outweigh the struggles of those around you (and yourself).
Back to the documentaries, take Last Dance with a grain of salt. Lance is an all time great character study. Both are worth watching.
Addendum: Some have outright accused the Last Dance of being rife with lies. Maybe an entire shaker of salt is in order.
[Movies] Flick Check, A Couple to Skip
One of the benefits that will come with the end of lockdown will be that I can go back to largely ignoring movies. The other day I found myself paging through Amazon Prime, having flashbacks to going to rent a video from Blockbuster and seeing nothing I wanted to watch and wandering the aisles until I finally settled on something that at least would pass the time inoffensively. I saw two movies this month, neither of which was worth the time spent watching.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile -- This is an unfocused retelling of the Ted Bundy serial killings. Supposedly from the point of view of his girlfriend/fiance who stood by him through the ordeal, or at least stood by him much longer than she should have. It is manipulative. We see her standing by him, although we are not clear on why she should have known better because we are presented with so few details of the investigation that it's made to seem like he really was possibly not guilty. Is that meant to have shown us what it looked like to her? Are we supposed to assume she looked no more deeply at it? The actions and state of mind of the woman we are focussed on is unclear, and so it ends up dramatically unsatisfying. (A final revelation at the end only serves to make this worse.) Slightly more interesting are the portrayals of the trial and the showboating characters who tried to use it as an entertainment platform. Zac Efron played Bundy and did a good job at serious acting. We are thankfully spared any portrayals of the actual murders. All in all, a fine concept, that results in nothing but a shrug.
Ad Astra -- This movie won a lot of accolades but it is actively bad. The story of an astronaut who has to follow up a lost mission to Neptune that was headed by his father because some aspect of the technology used in that mission is now causing chaos back on Earth and might destroy the solar system. As you might guess, this is about the astronaut's daddy issues. Near as I can tell it is little more than exposition from start to finish. He is brought into the mission via a briefing (exposition). He learns more from an older scientist and friend of his father who accompanies him (exposition). He learns yet more for another character he meets along the way (exposition). He finally encounters his father and they explore their feelings (exposition). The visuals are striking at times, but the science challenges your reality suspension skills. The most interesting question is how Brad Pitt decided to star in this. He is usually top notch at spotting good scripts, but this one is a real clunker.
So looking forward to not watching movies again.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile -- This is an unfocused retelling of the Ted Bundy serial killings. Supposedly from the point of view of his girlfriend/fiance who stood by him through the ordeal, or at least stood by him much longer than she should have. It is manipulative. We see her standing by him, although we are not clear on why she should have known better because we are presented with so few details of the investigation that it's made to seem like he really was possibly not guilty. Is that meant to have shown us what it looked like to her? Are we supposed to assume she looked no more deeply at it? The actions and state of mind of the woman we are focussed on is unclear, and so it ends up dramatically unsatisfying. (A final revelation at the end only serves to make this worse.) Slightly more interesting are the portrayals of the trial and the showboating characters who tried to use it as an entertainment platform. Zac Efron played Bundy and did a good job at serious acting. We are thankfully spared any portrayals of the actual murders. All in all, a fine concept, that results in nothing but a shrug.
Ad Astra -- This movie won a lot of accolades but it is actively bad. The story of an astronaut who has to follow up a lost mission to Neptune that was headed by his father because some aspect of the technology used in that mission is now causing chaos back on Earth and might destroy the solar system. As you might guess, this is about the astronaut's daddy issues. Near as I can tell it is little more than exposition from start to finish. He is brought into the mission via a briefing (exposition). He learns more from an older scientist and friend of his father who accompanies him (exposition). He learns yet more for another character he meets along the way (exposition). He finally encounters his father and they explore their feelings (exposition). The visuals are striking at times, but the science challenges your reality suspension skills. The most interesting question is how Brad Pitt decided to star in this. He is usually top notch at spotting good scripts, but this one is a real clunker.
So looking forward to not watching movies again.
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 3
At long last it appears as though things are loosening up. From what I gather, this is only partially because of relaxed government restrictions. It is mostly because folks are starting to get defiant, evidently Michigan is at the cutting edge of this defiance. We've all heard about the protests at the Capitol in Lansing. You'll have heard about them as either valid expressions of frustration and disagreement with the lockdown or greedy racist misogynist nazis looking to kill people, depending on your "news" source.
But there have been a lot of little things beyond that. A couple of weeks ago a 77-year-old barber opened his shop. He couldn't pay bills, couldn't support himself, so took all the precautions that he could then defied the shutdown order. In what was probably a foolish adherence to law, the State suspended his license and the police cited him. As far as I know, he is still cutting hair in defiance of everything.
I suppose that the judge's ruling is not indefensible but it strikes me as dubious. Another court affirmed the Governor's right to extend her emergency powers. So it seems there is this push-and-pull on who is allowed to do what. Many local police organizations are actively stating that they do not have the manpower or the inclination to harm their public relations by comprehensively enforcing those orders. The Governor has since extended our lockdown through mid-June, and it's getting increasingly hard for me not to see this, charitably, as an overreaction, or uncharitably as a middle finger to her opponents. Whether it's really what's best for everyone doesn't seem to be the main issue.
This is not really a big deal except as a way to point out that it never needed to come to this. Whatever the merits of her position, the Governor, who was elected as a compromising centrist, has positioned her messages negatively. She has spoken from a place of fear, wherein we all must suffer until we are safe, and as though the only thing saving us is to stay sheltered. The subliminal message is that we are at the virus's mercy. It would be a different story if she had said, "Michigan is opening. Here is the timeline for getting back to normal. Unless something terrible happens, nothing will stop that." From a practical standpoint there is no difference in policy, but putting forward the image of having a strong plan to open rather than a shelter-in-fear-until-it's-over message would have made all the difference in the world.
And, honestly, how on Earth did we make some grandfatherly barber who is desperate to make a living the symbol of lockdown defiance? Even though I question how much of a poor, sympathetic old soul this guy really is (note: he's got himself a high-end lawyer, he's also a part time novelist -- never trust a novelist), the "optics" here are atrocious. Would it not have been better to focus on high profile or overly egregious violations? Good grief.
The ultimate downside to all this is to remove the teeth from any future emergency orders. Suppose we open up a bit in June but things take a turn for the worse and we are ordered to go back on full lockdown after a month. Is anybody going to pay attention? The lawsuits against the lockdown continue to pile up and I know of at least one gym that has opened in stealth already.
Apart from the foibles of my pathetically mismanaged State, there is little new info. The CDC is now saying that it doesn't look like object contact is the main vector of transmission. Also, transmission outdoors seems to be pretty rare. People are looking at maps of the spread now and are slowly coming to the idea that broad-based transmission is not the big enemy, but the spread is focused in clusters along with all the implications that has for policy. We are still at a point where we don't know what is good or bad, or what is or isn't working. Every piece of data still has a confounding piece of data. Every story still has a valid counter-story. At this point, you have no justification to shame and sneer at the people who oppose you as being against science because science doesn't know yet. Meanwhile, unemployment remains historically high and the nation's economy remains on edge.
I continue to believe restrictions should be targeted, not state-wide. Rural counties have different issues than Detroit, why treat them the same? I know plenty of small retailers who have never had more than 10 people in their store at once, why treat them like Nordstrom? I know gyms that never have more than 6 clients in at the same time, why treat them like Equinox? I know lots of local restaurants that have outside seating (some exclusively), why treat them like Chilis? Base the policy on the ability to function safely rather than blanket by type of business.
I also think focusing on nationwide testing is probably not feasible and preparing for rapid reaction to new outbreaks is more practical, which follows along with the clustered outbreak evidence. I still think variolation should be in our toolkit.
But mostly, I think nobody cares what I think and everyone has already subsumed their opinion into their moral self-image and no argument -- scientific, statistical, or otherwise -- will change anyone's mind. At this point, beneath the surface of our grand proclamations and policies, we are a nation of people praying that, in a year or so, we'll be the ones who can say I told you so.
Addenda: Michigan is still on lockdown but Texas, where I spent a few days, is opening up. Restaurants are allowed 50% capacity so it was no trouble eating out. Of the three restaurants I ate in, only one took my temp on the way in. They were more strict where I got my haircut. They made me wait outside until a chair was available, checked my temperature, and had me keep my mask on throughout. Swimming in the pool was allowed but half of the lounge chairs had been removed. Again, I am impressed by the sense of positive action in Texas vs. places like California, New York, and, sadly, Michigan where the policy seems to be to duck and cover with righteous pride. Of course, that was rather the case before the plague too.
Addenda 2: After I wrote this we decided to have social justice protests and riots in a few big cities. Not much social distancing going on there (and, in fact, our Governor joined in). Above I questioned whether any future orders to return to lockdown would be followed by anyone. I think the protests have pretty much removed lockdowns as an option if there is a second wave.
I supposed one thing that will come out of this is finding out whether the restrictions really made a difference. Honestly, if there are no major breakouts in the places of mass protest, some health officials will have a lot to answer for. If there are major outbreaks the protestors are going to have lives to answer for.
But there have been a lot of little things beyond that. A couple of weeks ago a 77-year-old barber opened his shop. He couldn't pay bills, couldn't support himself, so took all the precautions that he could then defied the shutdown order. In what was probably a foolish adherence to law, the State suspended his license and the police cited him. As far as I know, he is still cutting hair in defiance of everything.
"I've been through so many of these things. I remember as a kid my mother used to make us sit in the basement because of the polio virus. I've been through the Hong Kong flu and the swine flu," he said.Subsequently, a local judge issued a ruling that allowed him to stay open because he believed the health officials needed to show this specific shop was spreading the virus, not just force a general order on it. Here's the full timeline, surprisingly (or perhaps not) from the UK.
Since he opened his shop again, business has skyrocketed, and a lot of people support his decision, he said. One customer drove from California just for a haircut...
I suppose that the judge's ruling is not indefensible but it strikes me as dubious. Another court affirmed the Governor's right to extend her emergency powers. So it seems there is this push-and-pull on who is allowed to do what. Many local police organizations are actively stating that they do not have the manpower or the inclination to harm their public relations by comprehensively enforcing those orders. The Governor has since extended our lockdown through mid-June, and it's getting increasingly hard for me not to see this, charitably, as an overreaction, or uncharitably as a middle finger to her opponents. Whether it's really what's best for everyone doesn't seem to be the main issue.
This is not really a big deal except as a way to point out that it never needed to come to this. Whatever the merits of her position, the Governor, who was elected as a compromising centrist, has positioned her messages negatively. She has spoken from a place of fear, wherein we all must suffer until we are safe, and as though the only thing saving us is to stay sheltered. The subliminal message is that we are at the virus's mercy. It would be a different story if she had said, "Michigan is opening. Here is the timeline for getting back to normal. Unless something terrible happens, nothing will stop that." From a practical standpoint there is no difference in policy, but putting forward the image of having a strong plan to open rather than a shelter-in-fear-until-it's-over message would have made all the difference in the world.
And, honestly, how on Earth did we make some grandfatherly barber who is desperate to make a living the symbol of lockdown defiance? Even though I question how much of a poor, sympathetic old soul this guy really is (note: he's got himself a high-end lawyer, he's also a part time novelist -- never trust a novelist), the "optics" here are atrocious. Would it not have been better to focus on high profile or overly egregious violations? Good grief.
The ultimate downside to all this is to remove the teeth from any future emergency orders. Suppose we open up a bit in June but things take a turn for the worse and we are ordered to go back on full lockdown after a month. Is anybody going to pay attention? The lawsuits against the lockdown continue to pile up and I know of at least one gym that has opened in stealth already.
Apart from the foibles of my pathetically mismanaged State, there is little new info. The CDC is now saying that it doesn't look like object contact is the main vector of transmission. Also, transmission outdoors seems to be pretty rare. People are looking at maps of the spread now and are slowly coming to the idea that broad-based transmission is not the big enemy, but the spread is focused in clusters along with all the implications that has for policy. We are still at a point where we don't know what is good or bad, or what is or isn't working. Every piece of data still has a confounding piece of data. Every story still has a valid counter-story. At this point, you have no justification to shame and sneer at the people who oppose you as being against science because science doesn't know yet. Meanwhile, unemployment remains historically high and the nation's economy remains on edge.
I continue to believe restrictions should be targeted, not state-wide. Rural counties have different issues than Detroit, why treat them the same? I know plenty of small retailers who have never had more than 10 people in their store at once, why treat them like Nordstrom? I know gyms that never have more than 6 clients in at the same time, why treat them like Equinox? I know lots of local restaurants that have outside seating (some exclusively), why treat them like Chilis? Base the policy on the ability to function safely rather than blanket by type of business.
I also think focusing on nationwide testing is probably not feasible and preparing for rapid reaction to new outbreaks is more practical, which follows along with the clustered outbreak evidence. I still think variolation should be in our toolkit.
But mostly, I think nobody cares what I think and everyone has already subsumed their opinion into their moral self-image and no argument -- scientific, statistical, or otherwise -- will change anyone's mind. At this point, beneath the surface of our grand proclamations and policies, we are a nation of people praying that, in a year or so, we'll be the ones who can say I told you so.
Addenda: Michigan is still on lockdown but Texas, where I spent a few days, is opening up. Restaurants are allowed 50% capacity so it was no trouble eating out. Of the three restaurants I ate in, only one took my temp on the way in. They were more strict where I got my haircut. They made me wait outside until a chair was available, checked my temperature, and had me keep my mask on throughout. Swimming in the pool was allowed but half of the lounge chairs had been removed. Again, I am impressed by the sense of positive action in Texas vs. places like California, New York, and, sadly, Michigan where the policy seems to be to duck and cover with righteous pride. Of course, that was rather the case before the plague too.
Addenda 2: After I wrote this we decided to have social justice protests and riots in a few big cities. Not much social distancing going on there (and, in fact, our Governor joined in). Above I questioned whether any future orders to return to lockdown would be followed by anyone. I think the protests have pretty much removed lockdowns as an option if there is a second wave.
I supposed one thing that will come out of this is finding out whether the restrictions really made a difference. Honestly, if there are no major breakouts in the places of mass protest, some health officials will have a lot to answer for. If there are major outbreaks the protestors are going to have lives to answer for.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
The Month That Was - April 2020
Still on lockdown -- still social distancing, still working from home, still desperately looking for excuses to run to the grocery store or fill the gas tank ro get out of the house for any reason at all. Michigan stay-at-home is until May 30th at the soonest.
I am finding ways to stay active and for the moment anyway, my day-to-day activities are still minorly impacted. I'm still employed, which is a saving grace. I'm getting enough exercise -- running, biking, walking, and the odd fitness video. I have been able to get some minor stuff done around the house. Although oddly, no fiction writing. Hmmmm.
I've been doing some pretentious reading. I tried to get into Sartor Resartus by Carlyle, but struggled with his baroque vocabulary and dozen clause sentences. I set it aside but I read enough to know I'd like to get back to it. Now I'm going through Thus Spoke Zarathustra -- Nietszche is all the rage in certain corners of the internet. I do need to mix in some more Maigret of Nero Wolfe to keep my head from exploding.
[TV] Toob Notes
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 2
[Rant] Lucky or Smart
I am finding ways to stay active and for the moment anyway, my day-to-day activities are still minorly impacted. I'm still employed, which is a saving grace. I'm getting enough exercise -- running, biking, walking, and the odd fitness video. I have been able to get some minor stuff done around the house. Although oddly, no fiction writing. Hmmmm.
I've been doing some pretentious reading. I tried to get into Sartor Resartus by Carlyle, but struggled with his baroque vocabulary and dozen clause sentences. I set it aside but I read enough to know I'd like to get back to it. Now I'm going through Thus Spoke Zarathustra -- Nietszche is all the rage in certain corners of the internet. I do need to mix in some more Maigret of Nero Wolfe to keep my head from exploding.
[TV] Toob Notes
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 2
[Rant] Lucky or Smart
[TV] Toob Notes
Tiger King
Yeah I got sucked into it like everyone else. Dear God what a festival of dysfunction!
Before I get to the show itself, let me start by saying I don't think exotic animals should be imported or bred for captivity. That said, I'm not sure how I justify that opinion. At some point in human history there were no domesticated animals, that is to say all animals were exotic in a sense. If people like me held sway throughout history there would be no domestication of wolves, and horses would never have been used for transportation. So how do I know that Tiger King and his ilk aren't just on the leading edge of a new human/animal partnership? Another thing is that it's clear that some of the folks in this documentary gain deep satisfaction from caring for these animals, especially the tigers. In my uncertainty, am I in a position to deny them that? What rights non-humans have under natural law is not a settled issue.
Sometimes I wish I could just be like most other people. Form incompletely reasoned opinions based on my gut and decide they are correct and certain then just get on with my life.
Yes, the characters in Tiger King are jaw-droppingly extreme. But perhaps equally impressive is the structure of the series itself. The first episode is just about some crazy weirdo who has a zoo. Then it builds. We see that there is a little subculture of exotic animal zoo keepers and they are all weirdos. Then we see they have a blood feud with a woman who is trying to shut them down. Then we see the woman trying to shut them down has a missing rich husband who was declared dead under suspicious circumstances and she may not be as saintly as she seems. The dead husband's family believes she killed him and her current husband --also wealthy -- is not exactly an alpha male. Then we see keeping exotic pets seems to go hand in hand with -- how to put this precisely? -- uncommon sexual relationships. Then things really start to get wild. There is an accidental suicide, criminals and conmen are everywhere, one of the wierdos clearly has turned his zoo into a cult-ish type organization with a Mason-esque troop of enraptured young girls. The pinnacle is a supposed murder-for-hire plot when at last the the FBI shuts everything down and makes arrests.
Here's the thing: It's all real. It is utterly, outrageously unbelievable but it is all real. Often you can see how a documentarian has manipulated facts to make things seem wild and bombastic, but honestly, it would be hard for me to make any sort of case that these were reasonable people being misrepresented. And I didn't even touch on many of the crazy details like the country songs, and the race for governor, and the boob jobs, and the drug dealers.
Fiction is dead, it cant compete.
Breaking: Nick Cage to play Joe Exotic in a scripted mini-series. Because of course he is. However weird you get, there is always something weirder.
Better Call Saul
This was Kim's season. She had convinced herself that her purpose was to do good. To make compromises to find ways to help the helpless; to defend the noble unwashed that the system is screwing. But after having to brazen her way through some tough, and in one case life-threatening, situations along with seeing the ultimate futility of pro bono. She appears to buy into the crooked life, wholeheartedly. This is Vince Gilligan's stock-in-trade. How events drive decent people down paths they should know better than to go down.
(I say "appears" because there is the outside possibility that she is either testing JImmy or outright conning him. I wouldn't put either past her.)
As far as character development goes, that was really about it for the season. The Jimmy/Mike/Nacho/Gus/Lalo story was strong, but really just a standard drug dealer plotline. No one found new aspects to their life or personality.
Better Call Saul is still a terrific show but it has yet to re-achieve the high point of the Jimmy versus Chuck drama of the first couple of seasons. With one more season to go I honestly wonder if it will. It may, like it's predecessor Breaking Bad just finish its last season as a top quality crime story. Nothing bad about that.
Yeah I got sucked into it like everyone else. Dear God what a festival of dysfunction!
Before I get to the show itself, let me start by saying I don't think exotic animals should be imported or bred for captivity. That said, I'm not sure how I justify that opinion. At some point in human history there were no domesticated animals, that is to say all animals were exotic in a sense. If people like me held sway throughout history there would be no domestication of wolves, and horses would never have been used for transportation. So how do I know that Tiger King and his ilk aren't just on the leading edge of a new human/animal partnership? Another thing is that it's clear that some of the folks in this documentary gain deep satisfaction from caring for these animals, especially the tigers. In my uncertainty, am I in a position to deny them that? What rights non-humans have under natural law is not a settled issue.
Sometimes I wish I could just be like most other people. Form incompletely reasoned opinions based on my gut and decide they are correct and certain then just get on with my life.
Yes, the characters in Tiger King are jaw-droppingly extreme. But perhaps equally impressive is the structure of the series itself. The first episode is just about some crazy weirdo who has a zoo. Then it builds. We see that there is a little subculture of exotic animal zoo keepers and they are all weirdos. Then we see they have a blood feud with a woman who is trying to shut them down. Then we see the woman trying to shut them down has a missing rich husband who was declared dead under suspicious circumstances and she may not be as saintly as she seems. The dead husband's family believes she killed him and her current husband --also wealthy -- is not exactly an alpha male. Then we see keeping exotic pets seems to go hand in hand with -- how to put this precisely? -- uncommon sexual relationships. Then things really start to get wild. There is an accidental suicide, criminals and conmen are everywhere, one of the wierdos clearly has turned his zoo into a cult-ish type organization with a Mason-esque troop of enraptured young girls. The pinnacle is a supposed murder-for-hire plot when at last the the FBI shuts everything down and makes arrests.
Here's the thing: It's all real. It is utterly, outrageously unbelievable but it is all real. Often you can see how a documentarian has manipulated facts to make things seem wild and bombastic, but honestly, it would be hard for me to make any sort of case that these were reasonable people being misrepresented. And I didn't even touch on many of the crazy details like the country songs, and the race for governor, and the boob jobs, and the drug dealers.
Fiction is dead, it cant compete.
Breaking: Nick Cage to play Joe Exotic in a scripted mini-series. Because of course he is. However weird you get, there is always something weirder.
Better Call Saul
This was Kim's season. She had convinced herself that her purpose was to do good. To make compromises to find ways to help the helpless; to defend the noble unwashed that the system is screwing. But after having to brazen her way through some tough, and in one case life-threatening, situations along with seeing the ultimate futility of pro bono. She appears to buy into the crooked life, wholeheartedly. This is Vince Gilligan's stock-in-trade. How events drive decent people down paths they should know better than to go down.
(I say "appears" because there is the outside possibility that she is either testing JImmy or outright conning him. I wouldn't put either past her.)
As far as character development goes, that was really about it for the season. The Jimmy/Mike/Nacho/Gus/Lalo story was strong, but really just a standard drug dealer plotline. No one found new aspects to their life or personality.
Better Call Saul is still a terrific show but it has yet to re-achieve the high point of the Jimmy versus Chuck drama of the first couple of seasons. With one more season to go I honestly wonder if it will. It may, like it's predecessor Breaking Bad just finish its last season as a top quality crime story. Nothing bad about that.
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 2
The conflict is between economic disaster and more deaths. That may be slightly hyperbolic, but essentially it's accurate. The bias to this date has been towards preventing more deaths, and that has probably been right, but there will come a point where that changes. It is certain that at some point the shut down will cause irreparable harm. If we don't see that point and react we're going to be in bad shape long after the virus is a fading memory. Financial disasters happen slowly, then all at once.
The truth is nobody knows much of anything. Not politicians, not epidemiologists, not economists. Every theory that is put forward is countered by an equally plausible opposite theory. Every piece of data is confounded by a conflicting piece of data. If you don't see this, you aren't reading widely enough. There is no point where you can guarantee re-opening won't cause an extra death, or ten extra deaths, or a hundred, or a thousand. Whatever point you choose, people will die that wouldn't have otherwise. Any point we re-open will be wrong. It will either be too early or too late.
It's an ugly state of affairs with virtually no certainly in anything, but we won't treat it that way. We won't acknowledge our uncertainty and, because of that, be tolerant of opinions and decisions that run counter to our own. We will do what we always do, build a story in our head based on our biases and assumptions, delude ourselves that it is objectively correct, and accuse anyone who disagrees of being reprehensible. And use our hindsight as a bludgeon later on.
I have my own story.
Here in Michigan the Governor is antagonising everybody. She has assumed emergency powers, keeps things shut, and explains little, just declares her good intentions. If she has her way, next month I will have to eventually write Coronatime, month 8. I don't think she's handling this very well as a point of political practicality, but expressing such an opinion would simply get me lumped in with the armed protestors marching on the capital. Meanwhile her attorney general has accused people who want restrictions lifted of racism. Yep, that's our world (are you a contributor?).
I do know one thing for certain. I will be on the first plane to the first state that legitimately opens up. I shall get a haircut, go to a gym, have food and drink somewhere nice, and not feel the slightest bit guilty. Addenda: Here is the best and clearest scientific assessment of Covid-19 I have seen. If you read this and decide that it confirms what you believed about how we should proceed, you should make every effort to reassess how biased you are.
The truth is nobody knows much of anything. Not politicians, not epidemiologists, not economists. Every theory that is put forward is countered by an equally plausible opposite theory. Every piece of data is confounded by a conflicting piece of data. If you don't see this, you aren't reading widely enough. There is no point where you can guarantee re-opening won't cause an extra death, or ten extra deaths, or a hundred, or a thousand. Whatever point you choose, people will die that wouldn't have otherwise. Any point we re-open will be wrong. It will either be too early or too late.
It's an ugly state of affairs with virtually no certainly in anything, but we won't treat it that way. We won't acknowledge our uncertainty and, because of that, be tolerant of opinions and decisions that run counter to our own. We will do what we always do, build a story in our head based on our biases and assumptions, delude ourselves that it is objectively correct, and accuse anyone who disagrees of being reprehensible. And use our hindsight as a bludgeon later on.
I have my own story.
- I think the lockdown needs to be loosened via targeting. Things like making special arrangements for the most vulnerable but opening things up for the young and healthy. Keeping things tight in highly infected and dense areas but opening things up elsewhere, rather than keep entire States shut down.
- I think we are underestimating the economic cost at the moment for two reasons:
- The economic assistance that was rendered, especially the unemployment increase and the $1200 advance, have done a lot of good but is unsustainable and may be impossible to repeat should this go longer.
- Policy makers are not in any immediate danger financially and so probably don't have the sense of urgency they should have about economic damage.
- I think we need to seriously consider variolation (intentionally infecting healthy volunteers) to build immunity. The soonest estimate I have seen for a vaccine is fall, flattening the curve for that long through lockdown is a recipe for financial disaster for a trivial benefit in mortality reduction.
Here in Michigan the Governor is antagonising everybody. She has assumed emergency powers, keeps things shut, and explains little, just declares her good intentions. If she has her way, next month I will have to eventually write Coronatime, month 8. I don't think she's handling this very well as a point of political practicality, but expressing such an opinion would simply get me lumped in with the armed protestors marching on the capital. Meanwhile her attorney general has accused people who want restrictions lifted of racism. Yep, that's our world (are you a contributor?).
I do know one thing for certain. I will be on the first plane to the first state that legitimately opens up. I shall get a haircut, go to a gym, have food and drink somewhere nice, and not feel the slightest bit guilty. Addenda: Here is the best and clearest scientific assessment of Covid-19 I have seen. If you read this and decide that it confirms what you believed about how we should proceed, you should make every effort to reassess how biased you are.
[Rant] Lucky or Smart
Sorry to go on about Coronavirus, but it's really all that is happening now. There is no issue or concern that is not related to it somehow -- except maybe the murder hornets.
As I mentioned, I am very lucky. The biggest reason for that is I still have my job. I work in software development for a global, Fortune 500 conglomerate. The work is what I would call government/regulatory-adjacent so while there will certainly be a hit to revenue, it will be much smaller than most. I haven't heard anything about possible layoffs and no contractors have been let go (I assume they would be first). The only hint of any problems has been a hiring freeze and gently worded announcements to please try to curtail expenses as much as possible. I suspect what will happen this year is that raises and bonuses will be eliminated for the time being.
Even better, I can work from home in relative comfort. So although my retirement plans took a hit -- when you're 59 you don't have decades to recover -- I really have no urgent money worries. I live in a big house in a comfortable, borderline rural, neighborhood with plenty of space and opportunities to get exercise outdoors. My biggest concerns are that I hate wearing a mask and I can't go to the gym.
Why am I cataloging this? Well, partially because there is really nothing else to write about these days (Yes, I know. I should write fiction.), but mostly because I want to understand what it says about me.
First of all, my current state should make any opinion I have about the need to extend restrictions highly suspect. As a corollary I should be very wary of dismissing the opinions of re-openers because I simply am not having the same experience as them. We might all be in this together, but we are not all in this equally.
But more interesting to me is what it means for me to say "I'm lucky." That is to ask, how much of my relatively happy circumstance is just chance versus will? Have I done smart things and made good decisions to get here, or did I just happen to stumble down a path that is letting me ride this out in comparative comfort?
Much of this hinges on financial security. I had some timely advantages here. First I inadvertently took a long time to graduate from college. But that effectively allowed me to work my way through. I took out a small loan when I was a sophomore, just a couple thousand dollars, but I was able to pay that off before I even graduated. When I was young I benefited from a gift of a car from my grandmother when I graduated college. I was wise enough to choose a Toyota which gave me 9 years of service. So that was nine years at the start of my adult life, when many people are accumulating debt that will hinder them for many years, where I got a head start. Is that luck? In some sense it is. It was not my plan, it just sort of worked out that way, but still it was my nature that allowed me to make the choices for it to happen without letting missteps undermine me. (Is my nature a matter of having good luck? Perhaps.)
This is not to say that everything worked out easily. I have a remarkable inability to find a job when I need one. This surprises people who know me who seem to think I am a pretty solid candidate for work -- I am very thoughtful, relatively diligent, personable when I try to be, though quite introverted. I am not the sort of person you would think to have trouble finding employment, but the two extended stretches of my life where I was unemployed were excruciatingly frustrating. In both cases, after months of effort, I ended up with jobs that I was quite underqualified for just to stay solvent. Does that count as bad luck? Or is it my fault for not playing the networking game and preparing better for interviews and being less, well, introverted. (Is my nature a matter of having bad luck? Perhaps.)
That brings me to the two things that allow me to be as comfortable as I am. One of those lousy jobs directly led the job I currently have and have been at for 27 years. My career advancement has been virtually non-existent, but it has been unwaveringly steady the whole time. My salary has grown equally steadily, and my 401k along with it. I have done nothing stupid with the money. I have mostly invested my savings conventionally. I travelled quite a bit, but never at great expense. Since that initial Toyota I have owned exactly 3 other cars, paid in full at purchase; I have never had a car payment. I purchased a condo which I lived in for 15 years which I recouped 100% at sale (no profit, but still better than renting). Was all that good luck? Again, I didn't pick the company thinking it was a place I could work and financially grow for nearly three decades, but I also didn't job hop around hoping to stumble on an amazing opportunity and a shot at the c-suite. I know folks who did that and are caught out of work now, at the worst time possible. Essentially I inadvertently took a low risk path. Was I lucky to stumble on that path? Probably. Was I wise to appreciate it and stay on it? Also, probably. Was my wisdom the result of my nature? Maybe. (Is my nature a matter of luck? Perhaps.)
Almost certainly, though, the biggest thing that contributed to my financial well-being has been not having a family. Raising children is where the bulk of people spend their money over their lives; many would argue it is the reason for the money to begin with. Though having a family at this exact point in time is a tremendous stressor, not just financially, I suspect very few people are serious thinking that they wish they hadn't started a family because it would be much easier on them right now. Without going into excruciating personal detail, not having a family is definitely the result of my nature. Few people would say someone who's nature drove them to never have a family was lucky, except perhaps in the case of pandemic.
There is no telling if my nature is a matter of luck or not, good or bad.
All this leads me to see this crisis as playing to my strengths. I am able to help out my friends in many ways. Provide some back-up, so to speak; be of value to those who have built up social capital with me. I am not under any tremendous stress (yet). That in itself is a form of luck. The crisis that happened is the crisis I happened to be well prepared for. I'm sure there are other crises that would devastate me and have me at my wit's end. The extent to which my current circumstances are the result of luck I can't say. I can say I am lucky that this crisis was one that I was set for.
So this post was my gut check. Am I doing this right? Acknowledge my good fortune. Support the people I care about as needed. Recognize that most people are living a very different experience than me, and respect that.
Yes, I think I'm doing OK.
As I mentioned, I am very lucky. The biggest reason for that is I still have my job. I work in software development for a global, Fortune 500 conglomerate. The work is what I would call government/regulatory-adjacent so while there will certainly be a hit to revenue, it will be much smaller than most. I haven't heard anything about possible layoffs and no contractors have been let go (I assume they would be first). The only hint of any problems has been a hiring freeze and gently worded announcements to please try to curtail expenses as much as possible. I suspect what will happen this year is that raises and bonuses will be eliminated for the time being.
Even better, I can work from home in relative comfort. So although my retirement plans took a hit -- when you're 59 you don't have decades to recover -- I really have no urgent money worries. I live in a big house in a comfortable, borderline rural, neighborhood with plenty of space and opportunities to get exercise outdoors. My biggest concerns are that I hate wearing a mask and I can't go to the gym.
Why am I cataloging this? Well, partially because there is really nothing else to write about these days (Yes, I know. I should write fiction.), but mostly because I want to understand what it says about me.
First of all, my current state should make any opinion I have about the need to extend restrictions highly suspect. As a corollary I should be very wary of dismissing the opinions of re-openers because I simply am not having the same experience as them. We might all be in this together, but we are not all in this equally.
But more interesting to me is what it means for me to say "I'm lucky." That is to ask, how much of my relatively happy circumstance is just chance versus will? Have I done smart things and made good decisions to get here, or did I just happen to stumble down a path that is letting me ride this out in comparative comfort?
Much of this hinges on financial security. I had some timely advantages here. First I inadvertently took a long time to graduate from college. But that effectively allowed me to work my way through. I took out a small loan when I was a sophomore, just a couple thousand dollars, but I was able to pay that off before I even graduated. When I was young I benefited from a gift of a car from my grandmother when I graduated college. I was wise enough to choose a Toyota which gave me 9 years of service. So that was nine years at the start of my adult life, when many people are accumulating debt that will hinder them for many years, where I got a head start. Is that luck? In some sense it is. It was not my plan, it just sort of worked out that way, but still it was my nature that allowed me to make the choices for it to happen without letting missteps undermine me. (Is my nature a matter of having good luck? Perhaps.)
This is not to say that everything worked out easily. I have a remarkable inability to find a job when I need one. This surprises people who know me who seem to think I am a pretty solid candidate for work -- I am very thoughtful, relatively diligent, personable when I try to be, though quite introverted. I am not the sort of person you would think to have trouble finding employment, but the two extended stretches of my life where I was unemployed were excruciatingly frustrating. In both cases, after months of effort, I ended up with jobs that I was quite underqualified for just to stay solvent. Does that count as bad luck? Or is it my fault for not playing the networking game and preparing better for interviews and being less, well, introverted. (Is my nature a matter of having bad luck? Perhaps.)
That brings me to the two things that allow me to be as comfortable as I am. One of those lousy jobs directly led the job I currently have and have been at for 27 years. My career advancement has been virtually non-existent, but it has been unwaveringly steady the whole time. My salary has grown equally steadily, and my 401k along with it. I have done nothing stupid with the money. I have mostly invested my savings conventionally. I travelled quite a bit, but never at great expense. Since that initial Toyota I have owned exactly 3 other cars, paid in full at purchase; I have never had a car payment. I purchased a condo which I lived in for 15 years which I recouped 100% at sale (no profit, but still better than renting). Was all that good luck? Again, I didn't pick the company thinking it was a place I could work and financially grow for nearly three decades, but I also didn't job hop around hoping to stumble on an amazing opportunity and a shot at the c-suite. I know folks who did that and are caught out of work now, at the worst time possible. Essentially I inadvertently took a low risk path. Was I lucky to stumble on that path? Probably. Was I wise to appreciate it and stay on it? Also, probably. Was my wisdom the result of my nature? Maybe. (Is my nature a matter of luck? Perhaps.)
Almost certainly, though, the biggest thing that contributed to my financial well-being has been not having a family. Raising children is where the bulk of people spend their money over their lives; many would argue it is the reason for the money to begin with. Though having a family at this exact point in time is a tremendous stressor, not just financially, I suspect very few people are serious thinking that they wish they hadn't started a family because it would be much easier on them right now. Without going into excruciating personal detail, not having a family is definitely the result of my nature. Few people would say someone who's nature drove them to never have a family was lucky, except perhaps in the case of pandemic.
There is no telling if my nature is a matter of luck or not, good or bad.
All this leads me to see this crisis as playing to my strengths. I am able to help out my friends in many ways. Provide some back-up, so to speak; be of value to those who have built up social capital with me. I am not under any tremendous stress (yet). That in itself is a form of luck. The crisis that happened is the crisis I happened to be well prepared for. I'm sure there are other crises that would devastate me and have me at my wit's end. The extent to which my current circumstances are the result of luck I can't say. I can say I am lucky that this crisis was one that I was set for.
So this post was my gut check. Am I doing this right? Acknowledge my good fortune. Support the people I care about as needed. Recognize that most people are living a very different experience than me, and respect that.
Yes, I think I'm doing OK.
Sunday, April 05, 2020
The Month That Was - March 2020
On lockdown -- well, on social distancing at least. Working from home, desperately looking for excuses to run to the grocery store or fill the gas tank or get out of the house for any reason at all. Right now, it looks like it'll be like this until May, at the soonest.
My retirement investment account screen has a little meter on it that moves from red to green depending on how well set I am for retirement. A couple of weeks ago it was barely in green, now it's gone far into red. Isn't that wonderful for someone who will turn 60 this year?
On the other hand, maybe I'll get stuff done -- chores, writing, etc. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to be productive. Trying to stay productive and busy is probably the best ambition to have right now.
[Movies] Flick Check: Oscars and Eye Rolls
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
My retirement investment account screen has a little meter on it that moves from red to green depending on how well set I am for retirement. A couple of weeks ago it was barely in green, now it's gone far into red. Isn't that wonderful for someone who will turn 60 this year?
On the other hand, maybe I'll get stuff done -- chores, writing, etc. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to be productive. Trying to stay productive and busy is probably the best ambition to have right now.
[Movies] Flick Check: Oscars and Eye Rolls
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
[Movies] Flick Notes: Oscars and Eye Rolls
I used to watch movies all the time and keep up with all the new releases. I gave that up years ago because pretty much all movies were disappointing to me. None of them seemed to be saying or doing anything new. The bulk of them even fail as entertainment. But when you run out of things to do, well... Most of these got some sort of Oscar mentions.
Joker -- Everybody is talking about Jaoquin Phoenix's performance and rightly so. He's a phenomenal actor. The movie itself is gut punch after gut punch. There is no respite. It is brilliantly shot and structured. Visually stunning. It owes a debt to Taxi Driver, obviously. But theme-wise, it's another cruel-world-destroys-a-decent-man story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. As beautiful as the craftsmanship and acting was, it doesn't strike me as rewatchable.
Ford versus Ferrari -- This is a man's movie. That is to say all the major characters are men and it celebrates traditional masculine roles and attitudes. In that sense it is kin to movies such as The Right Stuff and Master and Commander. Christian Bale gets to play a goofy wildman. Matt Damon (whom I increasingly like) gets to play gruff and homespun. Theme-wise, it's another powerful-people-are-keeping-the-true-believer-down story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. But it is a lot of fun so it has a high probability of being a rewatch.
JoJo Rabbit -- Part delightful, part depressing. This kid Roman Griffin Davis is the one who should get the best actor award. It starts out to be an irreverent comedy about some Nazi youth in the last days of the Third Reich, if you can believe it, and it's brilliantly funny and touching, even considering the main kid has a goofy version of Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. But this is no Hogan's Heroes. We transition into finding a Jew hiding in an attic and a slow descent into tragedy and terror. Yet, oddly, it never feels like a beatdown. It never loses its sense of humor or the humanity of its characters, even the Nazis. A remarkable achievement. Of the movies I've seen lately it's the only one that seems fresh and original, even daring. It doesn't make me roll my eyes, but if I rewatch, I'll turn it off about half way.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- Well, that was, um...interesting. The story of a fading Hollywood TV star and his friend and stunt double. They have various highly stylized adventures culminating in a re-imagining of the Manson family massacres, wherein the family, instead of committing the Tate-LaBianca murders, end up trying to kill the TV Star and his stuntman who end up killing the Manson crowd in a most gruesome manner. In a way, this is of a piece with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds wherein a bunch of badass Jews demolish Nazis -- it's a fantasy of evil served justice that they didn't get in real life. Much could be made of Taratino's self-conscious view of Hollywood as a righteous fantasy machine, and I'm sure pretentious film reviewers will. If the ultimate statement of Once... is unclear, it is still beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, cleverly structured, and rife with points of nostalgia for someone my age, and often utterly mesmerizing. No eye roll. Likely rewatchable.
Icarus -- This won the Documentary Oscar a couple of years back. It is riveting. It begins with a very accomplished amateur cyclist (the documentarian) who decides to pursue a doping regime and document the process as an expose on the ineffectiveness of anti-doping measures. In the course of this he works with, and befriends, a legendary Russian doping master who had worked with Russian Olympic teams. The Russian takes advantage of the opportunity to become a whistleblower in the Russian Olympic doping scandal and things go from interesting to deadly serious as the highest levels of Russian politicians take umbrage and the stakes become mortal. Definitely recommended. Free on Netflix. No eye roll, but there is rarely a reason to rewatch a documentary, maybe doing further reading into the story counts as a rewatch.
Joker -- Everybody is talking about Jaoquin Phoenix's performance and rightly so. He's a phenomenal actor. The movie itself is gut punch after gut punch. There is no respite. It is brilliantly shot and structured. Visually stunning. It owes a debt to Taxi Driver, obviously. But theme-wise, it's another cruel-world-destroys-a-decent-man story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. As beautiful as the craftsmanship and acting was, it doesn't strike me as rewatchable.
Ford versus Ferrari -- This is a man's movie. That is to say all the major characters are men and it celebrates traditional masculine roles and attitudes. In that sense it is kin to movies such as The Right Stuff and Master and Commander. Christian Bale gets to play a goofy wildman. Matt Damon (whom I increasingly like) gets to play gruff and homespun. Theme-wise, it's another powerful-people-are-keeping-the-true-believer-down story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. But it is a lot of fun so it has a high probability of being a rewatch.
JoJo Rabbit -- Part delightful, part depressing. This kid Roman Griffin Davis is the one who should get the best actor award. It starts out to be an irreverent comedy about some Nazi youth in the last days of the Third Reich, if you can believe it, and it's brilliantly funny and touching, even considering the main kid has a goofy version of Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. But this is no Hogan's Heroes. We transition into finding a Jew hiding in an attic and a slow descent into tragedy and terror. Yet, oddly, it never feels like a beatdown. It never loses its sense of humor or the humanity of its characters, even the Nazis. A remarkable achievement. Of the movies I've seen lately it's the only one that seems fresh and original, even daring. It doesn't make me roll my eyes, but if I rewatch, I'll turn it off about half way.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- Well, that was, um...interesting. The story of a fading Hollywood TV star and his friend and stunt double. They have various highly stylized adventures culminating in a re-imagining of the Manson family massacres, wherein the family, instead of committing the Tate-LaBianca murders, end up trying to kill the TV Star and his stuntman who end up killing the Manson crowd in a most gruesome manner. In a way, this is of a piece with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds wherein a bunch of badass Jews demolish Nazis -- it's a fantasy of evil served justice that they didn't get in real life. Much could be made of Taratino's self-conscious view of Hollywood as a righteous fantasy machine, and I'm sure pretentious film reviewers will. If the ultimate statement of Once... is unclear, it is still beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, cleverly structured, and rife with points of nostalgia for someone my age, and often utterly mesmerizing. No eye roll. Likely rewatchable.
Icarus -- This won the Documentary Oscar a couple of years back. It is riveting. It begins with a very accomplished amateur cyclist (the documentarian) who decides to pursue a doping regime and document the process as an expose on the ineffectiveness of anti-doping measures. In the course of this he works with, and befriends, a legendary Russian doping master who had worked with Russian Olympic teams. The Russian takes advantage of the opportunity to become a whistleblower in the Russian Olympic doping scandal and things go from interesting to deadly serious as the highest levels of Russian politicians take umbrage and the stakes become mortal. Definitely recommended. Free on Netflix. No eye roll, but there is rarely a reason to rewatch a documentary, maybe doing further reading into the story counts as a rewatch.
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Book Look: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Mishima is a controversial character, partly because many on what is glibly called the "alt-right" have taken him as a bit of a role model. I leave it as an exercise for the reader if you want to read up on him. Like many reactionaries (that's not a dirty word to me, it's just an accurate description), Mishima looks back to a romanticized time of beauty, valor, and purpose. I am highly skeptical of that since I am old enough to remember a time that some folks think of as romantically idealized and it was no such thing.
Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy of novels that Mishima meant to be his crowning glory; a sweeping overview of the changes in Japan over the course of a half a century, placing personal stories in the context of the sociopolitical. Authors have tried this many times, usually via a multi-generational family saga. Mishima attempts it by following a single character and his encounters throughout his life with a reincarnated friend who always dies before his/her twentieth birthday. The first death is in Spring Snow and each subsequent novel is a reincarnation.
Spring Snow centers around Kiyo, a diffident, detached, spoiled, 19-year-old son of a "new money" family scion. Kiyo's world is noticeably divided between fashionable attraction for western culture and the traditional imperial worship culture. Also in this mix we have Satoko, the beautiful daughter of a generations-old legitimately aristocratic family, though now fallen on hard times. The new-money and old-blood families have a symbiotic connection for the sake of each other's status. The son and daughter have a great attraction to one another in the juvenile manner of antagonizing each other and denying their feelings. At a time when they are bickering and distant, Satoko finds herself betrothed to a crown prince -- a relative of the Emperor. Like a child demanding a previously ignored toy once it is taken away, Kiyo sees the truth of his feelings and desperately desires her. They begin an illicit affair, cuckolding the crown prince. More star-crossed they could not be.
When Satoko becomes pregnant their affair is discovered. The public exposure of such wanton illicit behavior would be an insult to the Emperor himself and effectively the end of both families, at least as far as their status went. All the bitterness between the two families comes out, but they succeed in minimizing the damage and saving face, though they must scramble, connive, bribe, and lie to do it. In the course of things Satoko gets an abortion and enters a nunnery, never to see Kiyo again. Kiyo's soul is lost, he cannot return to his previous life. He attempts to see Satoko at the nunnery but is denied and falls ill from waiting for her in the cold weather and dies. As I alluded, it's all very tragically Shakespearean.
Throughout it all Mishima bends the narrative to hint at the lost qualities of the past in the face of what might be called cultural progress. In Spring Snow these are fairly subtle and more along the lines of s minor lament for those losses without outright condemnation of the present. My understanding is that this changes in the sequels.
Should you read Spring Snow? It is slow, especially at the start. Mishima does not subscribe to the "grab the reader's attention quickly" philosophy. He writes with a languid elegance that matches well with the overly formal era he is describing. He is absolutely not one to tell a joke. Aesthetics, sensuality, and romanticism dominate his approach. Not a blade of grass flutters without an ornate description. But, if he builds his story and characters slowly, he builds them with care and depth. There were a couple of times during the early chapters when I suspected he was going nowhere with this and nearly gave up, but by the middle of the book I was fully invested. Still, it is for the patient reader (but we all have time these days, don't we?) who has an appreciation of nuance and quiet action. In that sense, it is like Mishima himself: better suited for an earlier time. I am on the fence as to whether to dive into the remaining three novels.
Mishima is a controversial character, partly because many on what is glibly called the "alt-right" have taken him as a bit of a role model. I leave it as an exercise for the reader if you want to read up on him. Like many reactionaries (that's not a dirty word to me, it's just an accurate description), Mishima looks back to a romanticized time of beauty, valor, and purpose. I am highly skeptical of that since I am old enough to remember a time that some folks think of as romantically idealized and it was no such thing.
Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy of novels that Mishima meant to be his crowning glory; a sweeping overview of the changes in Japan over the course of a half a century, placing personal stories in the context of the sociopolitical. Authors have tried this many times, usually via a multi-generational family saga. Mishima attempts it by following a single character and his encounters throughout his life with a reincarnated friend who always dies before his/her twentieth birthday. The first death is in Spring Snow and each subsequent novel is a reincarnation.
Spring Snow centers around Kiyo, a diffident, detached, spoiled, 19-year-old son of a "new money" family scion. Kiyo's world is noticeably divided between fashionable attraction for western culture and the traditional imperial worship culture. Also in this mix we have Satoko, the beautiful daughter of a generations-old legitimately aristocratic family, though now fallen on hard times. The new-money and old-blood families have a symbiotic connection for the sake of each other's status. The son and daughter have a great attraction to one another in the juvenile manner of antagonizing each other and denying their feelings. At a time when they are bickering and distant, Satoko finds herself betrothed to a crown prince -- a relative of the Emperor. Like a child demanding a previously ignored toy once it is taken away, Kiyo sees the truth of his feelings and desperately desires her. They begin an illicit affair, cuckolding the crown prince. More star-crossed they could not be.
When Satoko becomes pregnant their affair is discovered. The public exposure of such wanton illicit behavior would be an insult to the Emperor himself and effectively the end of both families, at least as far as their status went. All the bitterness between the two families comes out, but they succeed in minimizing the damage and saving face, though they must scramble, connive, bribe, and lie to do it. In the course of things Satoko gets an abortion and enters a nunnery, never to see Kiyo again. Kiyo's soul is lost, he cannot return to his previous life. He attempts to see Satoko at the nunnery but is denied and falls ill from waiting for her in the cold weather and dies. As I alluded, it's all very tragically Shakespearean.
Throughout it all Mishima bends the narrative to hint at the lost qualities of the past in the face of what might be called cultural progress. In Spring Snow these are fairly subtle and more along the lines of s minor lament for those losses without outright condemnation of the present. My understanding is that this changes in the sequels.
Should you read Spring Snow? It is slow, especially at the start. Mishima does not subscribe to the "grab the reader's attention quickly" philosophy. He writes with a languid elegance that matches well with the overly formal era he is describing. He is absolutely not one to tell a joke. Aesthetics, sensuality, and romanticism dominate his approach. Not a blade of grass flutters without an ornate description. But, if he builds his story and characters slowly, he builds them with care and depth. There were a couple of times during the early chapters when I suspected he was going nowhere with this and nearly gave up, but by the middle of the book I was fully invested. Still, it is for the patient reader (but we all have time these days, don't we?) who has an appreciation of nuance and quiet action. In that sense, it is like Mishima himself: better suited for an earlier time. I am on the fence as to whether to dive into the remaining three novels.
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
Well the initial shock is over. I've figured out how to work from home. Food is not a problem. I'm one of those guys who buys toilet paper and paper towels in bulk so I was fully stocked before it started. I can't find sanitizing wipes so those are being used measuredly. The biggest hurt is seeing my retirement savings go from enjoy-the-good-life to think-about-downsizing.
I still have my job and I should be one of the last to go if layoffs start. A while ago my company started contracting for developers rather than hiring full-time employees. You would hope the contractors go first if things get bad. That's kind of the point. I resisted the move to contractors originally, but now I am chastised.
I am absolutely one of the lucky ones. My biggest problem for now is not being able to go to the gym.
I'm left to question what the future holds. Short term we have at least a month more on lockdown. Detroit is in a bad way and so anywhere nearby will probably suffer along with it as far as ongoing restrictions. Honestly, if Michigan lags anywhere in the country in returning to normal, I plan to hop a plane to Normalsville ASAP. All I need is a wifi connection.
It's the uncertainty and lack of control that induces anxiety, and uncertainty and lack of control is pretty much all we have now. The only thing that would help at this point would be knowing the endgame, which nobody knows. So I might as well spill my expectations since they are as good as anyone's.
I think before it's all said and done, about half the population can count on getting infected, but I want to be careful with statistics. Right now folks are putting the death rate at a little over 2% of the infected. So if half the population gets it that means 1% of the population will die, right (3.5 million in the U.S.)? Well, no. Right now that 2+% is based on the the number of people who were sick enough, and lucky enough, to be tested. We have no idea how many people have been infected as it is generally accepted that for most people this could be passed off as a mild cold, and that many are asymptomatic entirely. So, no, I don't think 1% of the population will die from this. The Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine now estimates somewhere between .1% and .26%. That's optimistic, I think (but so am I). It's still a huge number, though. If I am right about half the population getting infected, that still calcs out to about 400,000 fatalities in the U.S. Roughly the same as WW2, or about 12 years of annual traffic deaths.
Another gut punch is that we may not be able to do anything about it beyond some minor mitigation. Once someone is sick enough to need urgent hospitalization (read: a ventilator), I have seen 10-30% chances of survival statistics, even if they get the care and equipment they need. Most of us don't need to panic for our own sake. The bulk of the fatalities will be for the elderly and health compromised. Even so, the bulk of us should brace for potential loss of family or friends. Barring the discovery of an effective treatment or a vaccine, all the social distancing in the world will just smooth the pain. Uncertainty and lack of control.
No one has ever successfully created a vaccine for a coronavirus (the flu is not a coronavirus). That sounds bad, but it's not 1918, or even 2002 anymore. This virus has had its genetic structure turned inside out in every way imaginable. Bill Gates and others have thrown billions at the problem. If it is possible to find a vaccine quickly, someone will, but I don't think the odds are with it. That's not to say some treatment won't be found to mitigate the symptoms and enable more recoveries. We have other new weapons in our arsenal such as 3-D printing respirator parts, near instant and constant communication, fewer lifelong smokers, and better hygiene policies in general. And we still have a potential arrow in our quiver called variolation. Variolation is when you infect likely survivors (volunteers, of course) with a very mild dose of the virus; just enough to develop immunity without inordinate risk of fatality. This was used effectively against smallpox as long ago as the 1700s. You build up enough immunity across the population to effectively drop the wildfire like spread of the virus if not stop it outright. Socio-politically we aren't there although I wonder if we should be.
Anyway, I expect to get it. I don't expect to die. And I really hope taking good care of myself physically over all these years has paid off in a comparatively strong immune system for a 59-year-old. (59 and a half, but who's counting?) That is the story I'm sticking to, anyway.
But what is the process for getting the world back to normal? Well, the federal government has offered guidelines which, as I read them, roughly come down to "If you go two weeks without an increase in the death rate, then you can think about gradually easing restrictions." Sounds reasonable and fairly neutral -- it doesn't make any reference to plans and schemes, it just looks to see if whatever you are doing is working. It does leave open the question of neighboring geography. If Detroit remains a hotspot but the rest of Michigan is under control, how long should Mackinac Island remain closed? Or if Indiana eases restrictions will there be mass visitation from the Chicago or Cinicinnati or Louisville that knocks them back down? These are going to be tricky decisions that have to be made with talking heads on the news shows trying to trap and embarrass the decision makers, typing hands on social media screeching about epic fails everywhere, and dirt-bag lawyers looking for any angle for a class action case.
I suspect we'll get back to normal when people fear the restrictions more than the virus. Right now there is a broad sense of community and urge to sacrifice for the common good. That will slowly dwindle as the unemployment rolls grow and economic recovery slips further and further into the future. A good clue will be what happens when white collar workers (like me) start to get laid off en masse. A lot of righteous tunes will change and suddenly the opinion that these restrictions may not be the panacea they are cracked up to be will start to gain prominence.
So I have no great insights or answers. I can build narratives where everything works out great and also where it doesn't, and I have no idea which is right. One thing I am reading here and there is how, once this is over, people will be a lot more grateful for their everyday lives. Not me. If there is one behavior I have been able to practice in recent decades it is gratitude for what I have. At least, that leaves me with no regrets about not appreciating my life before the plague. I am grateful for my gratitude.
One last thought on looking ahead: Many people are looking to the 1918 flu pandemic as a comparable. I don't know how accurate that is. It's a very different world. But I will point out that what followed that plague was 9 years of one of the greatest booms in history called The Roaring Twenties. That roar went far beyond just the economy. Once we get through this, things could get lit up in here, is what I'm saying.
I still have my job and I should be one of the last to go if layoffs start. A while ago my company started contracting for developers rather than hiring full-time employees. You would hope the contractors go first if things get bad. That's kind of the point. I resisted the move to contractors originally, but now I am chastised.
I am absolutely one of the lucky ones. My biggest problem for now is not being able to go to the gym.
I'm left to question what the future holds. Short term we have at least a month more on lockdown. Detroit is in a bad way and so anywhere nearby will probably suffer along with it as far as ongoing restrictions. Honestly, if Michigan lags anywhere in the country in returning to normal, I plan to hop a plane to Normalsville ASAP. All I need is a wifi connection.
It's the uncertainty and lack of control that induces anxiety, and uncertainty and lack of control is pretty much all we have now. The only thing that would help at this point would be knowing the endgame, which nobody knows. So I might as well spill my expectations since they are as good as anyone's.
I think before it's all said and done, about half the population can count on getting infected, but I want to be careful with statistics. Right now folks are putting the death rate at a little over 2% of the infected. So if half the population gets it that means 1% of the population will die, right (3.5 million in the U.S.)? Well, no. Right now that 2+% is based on the the number of people who were sick enough, and lucky enough, to be tested. We have no idea how many people have been infected as it is generally accepted that for most people this could be passed off as a mild cold, and that many are asymptomatic entirely. So, no, I don't think 1% of the population will die from this. The Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine now estimates somewhere between .1% and .26%. That's optimistic, I think (but so am I). It's still a huge number, though. If I am right about half the population getting infected, that still calcs out to about 400,000 fatalities in the U.S. Roughly the same as WW2, or about 12 years of annual traffic deaths.
Another gut punch is that we may not be able to do anything about it beyond some minor mitigation. Once someone is sick enough to need urgent hospitalization (read: a ventilator), I have seen 10-30% chances of survival statistics, even if they get the care and equipment they need. Most of us don't need to panic for our own sake. The bulk of the fatalities will be for the elderly and health compromised. Even so, the bulk of us should brace for potential loss of family or friends. Barring the discovery of an effective treatment or a vaccine, all the social distancing in the world will just smooth the pain. Uncertainty and lack of control.
No one has ever successfully created a vaccine for a coronavirus (the flu is not a coronavirus). That sounds bad, but it's not 1918, or even 2002 anymore. This virus has had its genetic structure turned inside out in every way imaginable. Bill Gates and others have thrown billions at the problem. If it is possible to find a vaccine quickly, someone will, but I don't think the odds are with it. That's not to say some treatment won't be found to mitigate the symptoms and enable more recoveries. We have other new weapons in our arsenal such as 3-D printing respirator parts, near instant and constant communication, fewer lifelong smokers, and better hygiene policies in general. And we still have a potential arrow in our quiver called variolation. Variolation is when you infect likely survivors (volunteers, of course) with a very mild dose of the virus; just enough to develop immunity without inordinate risk of fatality. This was used effectively against smallpox as long ago as the 1700s. You build up enough immunity across the population to effectively drop the wildfire like spread of the virus if not stop it outright. Socio-politically we aren't there although I wonder if we should be.
Anyway, I expect to get it. I don't expect to die. And I really hope taking good care of myself physically over all these years has paid off in a comparatively strong immune system for a 59-year-old. (59 and a half, but who's counting?) That is the story I'm sticking to, anyway.
But what is the process for getting the world back to normal? Well, the federal government has offered guidelines which, as I read them, roughly come down to "If you go two weeks without an increase in the death rate, then you can think about gradually easing restrictions." Sounds reasonable and fairly neutral -- it doesn't make any reference to plans and schemes, it just looks to see if whatever you are doing is working. It does leave open the question of neighboring geography. If Detroit remains a hotspot but the rest of Michigan is under control, how long should Mackinac Island remain closed? Or if Indiana eases restrictions will there be mass visitation from the Chicago or Cinicinnati or Louisville that knocks them back down? These are going to be tricky decisions that have to be made with talking heads on the news shows trying to trap and embarrass the decision makers, typing hands on social media screeching about epic fails everywhere, and dirt-bag lawyers looking for any angle for a class action case.
I suspect we'll get back to normal when people fear the restrictions more than the virus. Right now there is a broad sense of community and urge to sacrifice for the common good. That will slowly dwindle as the unemployment rolls grow and economic recovery slips further and further into the future. A good clue will be what happens when white collar workers (like me) start to get laid off en masse. A lot of righteous tunes will change and suddenly the opinion that these restrictions may not be the panacea they are cracked up to be will start to gain prominence.
So I have no great insights or answers. I can build narratives where everything works out great and also where it doesn't, and I have no idea which is right. One thing I am reading here and there is how, once this is over, people will be a lot more grateful for their everyday lives. Not me. If there is one behavior I have been able to practice in recent decades it is gratitude for what I have. At least, that leaves me with no regrets about not appreciating my life before the plague. I am grateful for my gratitude.
One last thought on looking ahead: Many people are looking to the 1918 flu pandemic as a comparable. I don't know how accurate that is. It's a very different world. But I will point out that what followed that plague was 9 years of one of the greatest booms in history called The Roaring Twenties. That roar went far beyond just the economy. Once we get through this, things could get lit up in here, is what I'm saying.
Monday, March 02, 2020
The Month That Was - February 2020
'Twas was the month the Coronavirus grew from a curiosity across the Pacific to OMG the world is going to end. As of right now, the best response anyone has come up with is wash your hands a lot, but I wouldn't be surprised if inoculation are announced sooner than we think. I mean pretty much every virologist in the world is looking at this now. In the meantime -- I planning on getting it at some point. Folks in my age group are looking at about a 2% fatality rate -- better than anything you'll find in Vegas. I also have to hope that being physically fit pays off in the strengthened immune system it is supposed to provide. Meanwhile the stock market is taking a hit and, if I live, I hope to buy at the bottom.
[Rant] OK Boomers
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
[Rant] OK Boomers
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
[Rant] OK Boomers
I was born in 1960. That makes me a late Boomer, assuming your definition follows the standard of "born between 1946 and 1964". My father served in WW2 and my mom was in the Waves, so the appellation fits.
Almost every claim everyone makes about Boomers is correct. We have had the cushiest birth in history, a notion first popularized in the deeply annoying movie, The Big Chill. The worst economic times we've ever seen was in 2009, now termed the Great Recession, which folks before us would have laughed at and which I took advantage of to buy a house at the bottom of the market.
We have done so well with money over the course of our lives that mass culture has been forced to follow us into old age. Have you noticed that Magnum P.I. and Hawaii 5-0 have been rebooted on TV? The most successful movie franchise of all time is based on comic books I remember from my tween years. How about the dinosaurs of Classic Rock still dominating the airwaves and raking in concert dollars?
We've also managed to preside over the gutting and degradation of just about every one of the institutions that supported us on our way to the top. If I were cynical I would call that pulling the ladder up behind us. Yes, Gen X takes some blame for this too, but they were just copying us.
About the only accusation that isn't true is that we've "ruined the planet". This is objectively false. By any broad measure the environment is better than it's ever been.
Wait! It gets better. The past few years have brought massive advances in the battles against cancer and Alzheimer's. That means most of us are probably going to live well beyond 80 and many of us will see triple digits. I have to laugh when I hear young people talk about Medicare for All. You're going to end up with half your meager paychecks going to cover our medical bills while we sit around and gripe about how you are ruining everything.
OK boomer? Not just OK, I'm doin' great.
Almost every claim everyone makes about Boomers is correct. We have had the cushiest birth in history, a notion first popularized in the deeply annoying movie, The Big Chill. The worst economic times we've ever seen was in 2009, now termed the Great Recession, which folks before us would have laughed at and which I took advantage of to buy a house at the bottom of the market.
We have done so well with money over the course of our lives that mass culture has been forced to follow us into old age. Have you noticed that Magnum P.I. and Hawaii 5-0 have been rebooted on TV? The most successful movie franchise of all time is based on comic books I remember from my tween years. How about the dinosaurs of Classic Rock still dominating the airwaves and raking in concert dollars?
We've also managed to preside over the gutting and degradation of just about every one of the institutions that supported us on our way to the top. If I were cynical I would call that pulling the ladder up behind us. Yes, Gen X takes some blame for this too, but they were just copying us.
About the only accusation that isn't true is that we've "ruined the planet". This is objectively false. By any broad measure the environment is better than it's ever been.
Wait! It gets better. The past few years have brought massive advances in the battles against cancer and Alzheimer's. That means most of us are probably going to live well beyond 80 and many of us will see triple digits. I have to laugh when I hear young people talk about Medicare for All. You're going to end up with half your meager paychecks going to cover our medical bills while we sit around and gripe about how you are ruining everything.
OK boomer? Not just OK, I'm doin' great.
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
It's been a long time since I saw a Woody Allen movie. I needn't recap the personal reputational crash he's experienced over the past decade or so (I remain agnostic as to its validity). Perhaps I should develop a policy on how to approach art by troublesome artists. Or perhaps I should chew glass.
Midnight in Paris is one of his magical-realist comedies. Set in modern day Paris, a writer engaged to an awful woman finds himself transported each night to the Paris of the 20s. He meets Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and a host of others. During the course of these adventures he comes to realize a) how awful his fiance is and b) how he can't live in a romanticized past. It's all very light-hearted, romantic, and delightful.
Although his main character is still basically Woody Allen, thankfully he stopped trying to play himself as the romantic lead. I think his last shot at that was shortly after the turn of the century, which was about 20 years too late. Here he gives the role to Owen Wilson who does a great job of playing Woody Allen, but more subtly and thoughtfully.
Yes, it's a standard Woody Allen comedy. If you hate those, you'll hate this. Also, although the moral of the story is to live in the present, you'd be hard pressed to get the most out of it unless you were aware of some of the personalities from the 20s, otherwise you'll miss a lot of the clever portrayals. I especially liked Adrien Brody's Dali. If you're OK with Woody Allen and have a passing awareness of the personalities from Paris in the 1920s you'll, like me, find it a fine piece of light entertainment -- sweet and engaging. It's promptly paced and deftly filmed. It won the Oscar for best original screenplay. What more could you want?
Midnight in Paris is one of his magical-realist comedies. Set in modern day Paris, a writer engaged to an awful woman finds himself transported each night to the Paris of the 20s. He meets Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and a host of others. During the course of these adventures he comes to realize a) how awful his fiance is and b) how he can't live in a romanticized past. It's all very light-hearted, romantic, and delightful.
Although his main character is still basically Woody Allen, thankfully he stopped trying to play himself as the romantic lead. I think his last shot at that was shortly after the turn of the century, which was about 20 years too late. Here he gives the role to Owen Wilson who does a great job of playing Woody Allen, but more subtly and thoughtfully.
Yes, it's a standard Woody Allen comedy. If you hate those, you'll hate this. Also, although the moral of the story is to live in the present, you'd be hard pressed to get the most out of it unless you were aware of some of the personalities from the 20s, otherwise you'll miss a lot of the clever portrayals. I especially liked Adrien Brody's Dali. If you're OK with Woody Allen and have a passing awareness of the personalities from Paris in the 1920s you'll, like me, find it a fine piece of light entertainment -- sweet and engaging. It's promptly paced and deftly filmed. It won the Oscar for best original screenplay. What more could you want?
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men, by Olaf Stapledon
The best word I can think of to describe Last and First Men is "intriguing". It is a "future history", a book -- written in 1930 -- that imagines the upcoming two billion years of man's development. It contains many fascinating ideas, along with a fair amount of silly fantasy. In broad strokes, Stapledon foresees humanity as forever moving through eras of rising from savagery, building civilizations of various stripe, only to eventually descend yet again, either through folly or mishap. It is essentially a manifestation of Stapledon's personal cosmology. As such, it's hard to call it an artistic work, it is more a work arm-chair philosophy, although a very accomplished one.
We start out roughly in 1930, just after WW1 and naturally we are treated to all the socio-political credences of the time -- that value of the League of Nations, for example -- including a fairly poor image of the United States, which eventually destroys Europe via chemical warfare, leaving the US and China to effectively divide the world. So maybe right for the wrong reasons. In time the First Men -- that's us, Homo Sapiens -- achieves a single world government, heavily religious, and in time destroys the world through something along the lines of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, leaving mere remnants which descend into barbarism. What follows is the evolution of the species through various forms, seventeen more incarnations in all, the 18th being the Last Men. After 10 million years the Second Men emerge -- a new species. They build a great civilization which perishes in a seemingly endless mutually destructive war with Martians. The Third Men are experts at biological manipulation and end up creating Fourth Men, the species that eventually replaces them. Earth becomes uninhabitable for the Fifth Men so they must terraform Venus and wipe out an pre-existing sentient species there for their own survival. The Eighth Men face destruction as the Sun expands and thus create the Ninth Men, specifically designed to inhabit the planet Neptune, which will be in the habitable zone of the expanded Sun. Starting over from scratch, the Neptunians evolve through a number of species, gaining a hive mind capability and eventually the ability to send their consciousness back through time to earlier men. By the time they hit the 18th species, they are as close to perfect as can be imagined, containing the best of all that came before them. And still they are to be destroyed in an astronomical cataclysm. They manage to send viral seed out into the galaxy before they are destroyed and the End of Man finally comes after two billion years.
Whew. As I read that, it sounds awfully trite, but it's not. It's really a springboard for observations about the nature of humanity. When species come into conflict it is often for reasons of class or narcissism. Aesthetic sensibilities and art persist in almost every species in some form or other, as does spirituality and prophetry, often intermingling. We find species suffering from collective guilt, which is not surprising for an author for whom WW1 is a recent affair. Sexuality remains and gets weird, and if you know anything about sexuality in the 1930s, that won't surprise you either. The Fifth Men are so thoroughly automated that their lives consist mostly of leisure (sound familiar?) bring a whole new raft of issues. Collective consciousness is explored as is atomic energy. Stapledon's take on human nature persists to the very end.
Still it is limited in ways. There are virtually no individuals and so no character arcs; I suppose you could say it is a biography of man so there is the arc of humanity. And like all science fiction, it cannot separate itself entirely from the concerns of the day in the time of the author's life. Still Stapledon does better than most at that. Even without individuals the book is humanistic.
A greater shortcoming is that Stapledon does go on. I often say most books could be trimmed by 30% with no loss to the reader. In Last and First Men it's probably over 50%. Descriptions get overly involved and repetitive. He writes with good style, but often it feels like he's spewing content to no end. This may be part and parcel without having character arcs to provide constraints.
Should you read Last and First Men. Probably not. It is really only for folks who might like to dwell on the nature of humanity and hyman motivation. Compared to traditional fiction, it is a setting without a plot. It is too ambling to be philosophy, to broad to be hard sci-fi, and too fantastic to be predictive. Still, like I said, it is intriguing. Though I spent more time thinking about what to think of it, than of the content itself.
We start out roughly in 1930, just after WW1 and naturally we are treated to all the socio-political credences of the time -- that value of the League of Nations, for example -- including a fairly poor image of the United States, which eventually destroys Europe via chemical warfare, leaving the US and China to effectively divide the world. So maybe right for the wrong reasons. In time the First Men -- that's us, Homo Sapiens -- achieves a single world government, heavily religious, and in time destroys the world through something along the lines of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, leaving mere remnants which descend into barbarism. What follows is the evolution of the species through various forms, seventeen more incarnations in all, the 18th being the Last Men. After 10 million years the Second Men emerge -- a new species. They build a great civilization which perishes in a seemingly endless mutually destructive war with Martians. The Third Men are experts at biological manipulation and end up creating Fourth Men, the species that eventually replaces them. Earth becomes uninhabitable for the Fifth Men so they must terraform Venus and wipe out an pre-existing sentient species there for their own survival. The Eighth Men face destruction as the Sun expands and thus create the Ninth Men, specifically designed to inhabit the planet Neptune, which will be in the habitable zone of the expanded Sun. Starting over from scratch, the Neptunians evolve through a number of species, gaining a hive mind capability and eventually the ability to send their consciousness back through time to earlier men. By the time they hit the 18th species, they are as close to perfect as can be imagined, containing the best of all that came before them. And still they are to be destroyed in an astronomical cataclysm. They manage to send viral seed out into the galaxy before they are destroyed and the End of Man finally comes after two billion years.
Whew. As I read that, it sounds awfully trite, but it's not. It's really a springboard for observations about the nature of humanity. When species come into conflict it is often for reasons of class or narcissism. Aesthetic sensibilities and art persist in almost every species in some form or other, as does spirituality and prophetry, often intermingling. We find species suffering from collective guilt, which is not surprising for an author for whom WW1 is a recent affair. Sexuality remains and gets weird, and if you know anything about sexuality in the 1930s, that won't surprise you either. The Fifth Men are so thoroughly automated that their lives consist mostly of leisure (sound familiar?) bring a whole new raft of issues. Collective consciousness is explored as is atomic energy. Stapledon's take on human nature persists to the very end.
Still it is limited in ways. There are virtually no individuals and so no character arcs; I suppose you could say it is a biography of man so there is the arc of humanity. And like all science fiction, it cannot separate itself entirely from the concerns of the day in the time of the author's life. Still Stapledon does better than most at that. Even without individuals the book is humanistic.
A greater shortcoming is that Stapledon does go on. I often say most books could be trimmed by 30% with no loss to the reader. In Last and First Men it's probably over 50%. Descriptions get overly involved and repetitive. He writes with good style, but often it feels like he's spewing content to no end. This may be part and parcel without having character arcs to provide constraints.
Should you read Last and First Men. Probably not. It is really only for folks who might like to dwell on the nature of humanity and hyman motivation. Compared to traditional fiction, it is a setting without a plot. It is too ambling to be philosophy, to broad to be hard sci-fi, and too fantastic to be predictive. Still, like I said, it is intriguing. Though I spent more time thinking about what to think of it, than of the content itself.
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
I have to imagine there are a lot of broken hearts in Houston. As you know I adopted the Astros as my fan-away-from-home team when I started spending time in Houston and going to the games. My proper team is, and will always be, the Tigers so at least I am somewhat insulated from the fallout from the cheating scandal -- although not the slightest bit insulated from 98 losses in '17 and '18 and 114 (!) losses last year.
Well, at least they were honest losses.
Nope, that doesn't help.
Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention, the Astros were revealed to be blatantly cheating via illegal sign-stealing during their 2017 World Series victory year. Naturally, once word got out, accusations, some highly speculative, compounded. Indignation spiralled, not all of it self-serving. I won't recap everything here.
What is going to be fascinating to me is what happens going forward. The MLB players are complaining that the punishment wasn't enough; that the Series and other awards should be stripped and maybe even rewarded to offended parties. Pitchers who got sent down to the minors after poor showings against the Astros are now martyrs. Pete Rose applied for reinstatement claiming his transgressions weren't as bad. The new Astros manager has asked MLB to take steps to protect the Astros from physical retaliation, both on- and off-field, when they are on the road. Honestly, the Astros might be grateful for the coronavirus as a distraction.
One thing is for sure, as we saw with the steroid scandal, everyone involved is tainted for life. The Astros organization has probably a decade before it recovers, in reputation, competitiveness, and financially. Much depends on how their fans react. If there is a chill in the air in Houston towards the Astros, that points to a long time until recovery. Most of the current players will have to have moved on before things begin to normalize. Would you buy a jersey with the name of a known, admitted cheater on it? You might cheer their achievements but would you pay top dollar for a box seat? (Contrarianism: If you are dedicated to the Astros for life, now might be a good time to purchase season tickets. They may never be cheaper.)
The Astros players may never recover. Have a bad year and everyone will think it's because you stopped cheating. Have a great year and everyone will be suspicious that something shady is going on. Endorsements will plummet. Your wikipedia page will be riddled with references to the scandal. And should you be good enough to be considered for the Hall of Fame, don't hold your breath. Worse this will affect your family right along with you.
Maybe it would have been kinder for MLB to strip them of their prizes and suspend the players. They could have at least claimed to have paid their debt and maybe started with a clean slate. As of now they are doomed to be walking asterisks.
Well, at least they were honest losses.
Nope, that doesn't help.
Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention, the Astros were revealed to be blatantly cheating via illegal sign-stealing during their 2017 World Series victory year. Naturally, once word got out, accusations, some highly speculative, compounded. Indignation spiralled, not all of it self-serving. I won't recap everything here.
What is going to be fascinating to me is what happens going forward. The MLB players are complaining that the punishment wasn't enough; that the Series and other awards should be stripped and maybe even rewarded to offended parties. Pitchers who got sent down to the minors after poor showings against the Astros are now martyrs. Pete Rose applied for reinstatement claiming his transgressions weren't as bad. The new Astros manager has asked MLB to take steps to protect the Astros from physical retaliation, both on- and off-field, when they are on the road. Honestly, the Astros might be grateful for the coronavirus as a distraction.
One thing is for sure, as we saw with the steroid scandal, everyone involved is tainted for life. The Astros organization has probably a decade before it recovers, in reputation, competitiveness, and financially. Much depends on how their fans react. If there is a chill in the air in Houston towards the Astros, that points to a long time until recovery. Most of the current players will have to have moved on before things begin to normalize. Would you buy a jersey with the name of a known, admitted cheater on it? You might cheer their achievements but would you pay top dollar for a box seat? (Contrarianism: If you are dedicated to the Astros for life, now might be a good time to purchase season tickets. They may never be cheaper.)
The Astros players may never recover. Have a bad year and everyone will think it's because you stopped cheating. Have a great year and everyone will be suspicious that something shady is going on. Endorsements will plummet. Your wikipedia page will be riddled with references to the scandal. And should you be good enough to be considered for the Hall of Fame, don't hold your breath. Worse this will affect your family right along with you.
Maybe it would have been kinder for MLB to strip them of their prizes and suspend the players. They could have at least claimed to have paid their debt and maybe started with a clean slate. As of now they are doomed to be walking asterisks.
Friday, February 07, 2020
The Month That Was - January 2020
So long 20-teens, eh? I don't know what to make of them. Whether it's a matter of my age or of a stagnating popular culture, I don't see it as much differentiated from the previous decade.
Ten years ago I posted about finishing a revision of what would be my third novel Misspent Youth; a book review of Cloud Atlas; a visit I made to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; an appreciation of John Hughes who had just died; some observations about purchasing a new car; and a link to Mr. Plinkett's now infamous seven-part take down of the Phantom Menace (before Disney took him down for copyright infringement).
None of it would be out of place today. I just finished a second revision of my next book, tentatively entitled The Hawk Sahib; the status of my reading is below; my car is doing fine although getting a little obsolete, it'll be a few years before it's that time again; I still make random cultural observations.
Perhaps I'm the one stagnating. Or perhaps I just like my life the way it is.
[Music, Rant] Background Music
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Movies] Flick Notes
Ten years ago I posted about finishing a revision of what would be my third novel Misspent Youth; a book review of Cloud Atlas; a visit I made to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; an appreciation of John Hughes who had just died; some observations about purchasing a new car; and a link to Mr. Plinkett's now infamous seven-part take down of the Phantom Menace (before Disney took him down for copyright infringement).
None of it would be out of place today. I just finished a second revision of my next book, tentatively entitled The Hawk Sahib; the status of my reading is below; my car is doing fine although getting a little obsolete, it'll be a few years before it's that time again; I still make random cultural observations.
Perhaps I'm the one stagnating. Or perhaps I just like my life the way it is.
[Music, Rant] Background Music
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Movies] Flick Notes
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