Monday Gonna Monday [DOT 19/4/21]

19/4/21 MegMegMcGee 47

I’m still off work (woot) so tomorrow will actually be my Monday.

What’s happening you say?

Three people are dead amid an active shooter incident in Austin, Texas
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/18/us/austin-shooting-three-dead/index.html

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846698258

Trump’s grip on GOP looms as support falters for independent probe of Capitol riot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/capitol-riot-january-6-commission/2021/04/17/109572e6-9ed9-11eb-9d05-ae06f4529ece_story.html

Opinion: Extending the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause for a week was a deadly mistake
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/17/extending-johnson-johnson-vaccine-pause-week-was-deadly-mistake/

Fauci: Republican vaccine deniers are hurting efforts to lift Covid restrictions
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/18/coronavirus-anthony-fauci-republican-vaccine-deniers-restrictions

Many veterans don’t trust coronavirus vaccines. For a VA crew in the rural West, that means changing minds, one by one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/17/veterans-coronavirus-vaccine/?itid=hp-top-table-main

Stonks!

Bitcoin tumbles from recent high as cryptocurrencies take weekend hit
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/18/bitcoin-plunges-from-recent-high-as-cryptocurrencies-take-weekend-hit.html

Lighter side:

Have a great day!

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47 Comments

  1. Random thoughts:
     
    1. Apparently now about 50% of adult Americans have gotten at least one dose of the Covid vaccine. That would include me! On the other hand, the rollout in Ontario, our neighbor (neighbour) to the north is going very slowly. I don’t understand this. In NYC it’s been this confusing patchwork of state sites, city sites, some hospitals, some pharmacy chains, all with their own complex online application systems that are glitchy and counter-intuitive, they time out, it’s chaos, but things seem to be opening up. I would have imagined that Canada in general would handle things much more smoothly, since there are provincial and a national health infrastructures, but apparently that’s not the case. And Ontario seems to be lagging the rest of the country. Would an Ontario resident care to chime in? I’ve actually googled this and there is a tsunami of complaints but no one says why.
     
    2. It’s mayoral primary season in New York! The Democratic ballot will have 12 names on it, which means something like 30+ would-be candidates didn’t make the cut. The candidates’ names are not listed alphabetically but rather were chosen (this is very New York) by placing 12 balls in one of those hand-cranked spinning globes that you see at bingo halls and during lottery drawings. Why not. The first line went to someone no one’s ever heard of. Andrew Yang got the last line, which is not actually the worst thing, because suppose you were #7? It’s all blur, but if you like him and know this you can just skip to the bottom and put him as your first choice. He’s leading in the polls, by the way, but there has been suspiciously little public polling. He seems to be first among white and Asian voters and second among Black and Latino voters. If the election were held today I predict he’d win (we have ranked choice voting for the first time) and it’s so weird to contemplate a Yang mayoralty. But, whatever, after eight years of de Blasio no one could be worse. I’m still completely undecided, and I can pick five, in order of preference. Someone once said to me, “there is such a thing as too much democracy.” This is rarely true but it might be in the case of the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary.

    • I hate to say it, but “it could be worse” laments are usually met with “challenge accepted” by the candidates and electorate.
      Yang’s unfamiliarity with city and state mechanisms of government will probably render him useless and you’d be stuck living under the whims of unaccountable functionaries until Yang figures shit out or gets tossed.

      • I also read a very approving story about Scott Stringer’s bid. He recently was one of the three mayoral candidates who got the Working Families Party endorsement. Well, that’s good. But the story went on to say that he’s in a stronger position than the polling would have you believe. As City Comptroller he loaded up the payroll with hacks whose sole qualification is that they have political connections and influence with all kinds of voting blocs (one of Gregory Meeks’s children, for example.) Again, this was a very supportive article, but it made me queasy. Before he became comptroller he was Manhattan Borough President. I had completely forgotten this, if I ever knew it, and I lived in Manhattan during his entire tenure, according to wikipedia. In fact I’ve lived here for over 30 years and I probably voted for him! If this election were being conducted 20 years ago, let’s say, he’d be a shoo-in, but I think a lot of people (I’m one) are getting a little tired of the Democratic machine. 

        • Oops. Having one of Gregory Meeks’s kids on the payroll wasn’t enough for Scott Stringer. Meeks, who must be a very busy man, since he’s also the Chairman of the Queens Democratic Party (so a consummate hack, Joe Crowley was his predecessor, he’s the one AOC knocked off) just endorsed former Citigroup exec Ray McGuire. Who knows why. Ray McGuire isn’t polling particularly well. 

    • I fiiiiiinally have an appointment for my first vaccine, this Friday. Fucking Massachusetts. I feel like everyone I know has already had their first shot, but I have no special qualifications and Mass decided to stick with the last possible federally required date to let the general public even schedule. We were able to “pre-register” I think 2-3 weeks ago, which has meant I get a weekly email telling me I’m still not eligible, and they’ll let me know when there’s an appointment for me at a Mass-run site. So at midnight, I started checking the non-Mass-run sites, and snagged a CVS appointment. 

      • This whole response (or lack thereof) to the pandemic and the vaccination rollout has really exposed Baker’s psychotic Republicanism.  He could have, if he actually believed the things he says in public, handled the lockdowns much better, been more cautious about opening back up, and actually put some resources into the vaccine rollout.  But, he just couldn’t help himself because, deep down, he doesn’t actually believe any of what he says in public–he only says it because he knows that talking like Gregg Abbott would have killed his electability.

        • Wasn’t Baker the CEO of some health care conglomerate? You would think that he could imagine how to roll this out. This is all very mystifying to me. MA has such a vast medical community, or at least the Boston area does.

          • Yes, but it’s all about the money, baby, and the lockdowns were killing the money stream.  Also, the vaccines aren’t exactly a huge money maker, considering they’re 100% covered by insurance (well, the actual vaccine, not the “administration fee” which is just the $20 or $40 bucks you’re charged for someone to actually stick it in your arm), and you know insurance isn’t paying the sticker price.  So, they don’t really give a shit.

          • What butcherbakertoiletrymaker said – his only motivation is money. Being a higher up in healthcare doesn’t mean you give a shit about public health. The opposite is usually true I’d assume. 

        • Totally! FUCK Charlie Baker. His sky-high approval finally dipped over the pandemic, but I still know people making excuses for him, my family included (who know people who know him… He’s closely connected with my hometown). There are zero excuses for his rush to reopen. It was so bad that Massachusetts got mentioned in the same breath as Texas on Colbert’s show, as states being stupid about reopening.

      • Congratulations on the Appointment, BDH!!!
        I hope all goes smoothly, snd that you have as few ( preferably none!💖) side effects as possible😃😁🤗

    • I am in the other half. Stuck in the labyrinthine hell of trying to get an appointment, juggling multiple tabs, refreshing screens, but everyone is booked for the next two months. I might just stop trying for a week or so, let the original rush for the door cool off. My biggest question has been, why was this left to the individual? Biggest health crisis since AIDS and we’re just totally on our own? Seems bonkers to me.

      • Fingers crossed, and all the good thoughts being thought in your direction, that you can get an appointment soon, PS!💖💞💗
         
        Hopefully you’ll be able to break through the jam sooner than you thought💖

      • This is why NM has been such a model of competence for other states to try and emulate (well, the states with Democratic governors, anyway).  The state is chasing the people instead of asking the people to chase the vaccine, so their rates across the board are much higher than the other states.

      • I’m on the local government’s wait-list…it doesn’t even tell me what that means…could be days, could be months. I’m tempted by a local clinic which only vaccinates BIPOC people… But I live a privileged life (husband works from home, our pod playdates are spent masked outdoors) and the riskiest thing I do is groceries once a week super early in the morning when the stores are empty. I don’t think I can justify potentially taking a shot from another BIPOC person who needs it more.

      • The only reason many of my social circle are vaccinated is because a decent amount work in some part of the health care industry and the rest ended up driving like 2 and a half hours to some fuckoff rural Missouri place where the state sent waaaaay more vaccines than needed. 

    • Without question, Yang will be worse than DeBlasio. Probably by orders of magnitude, even with BdB’s total failures of mayoral terms.

      Also: Canada was behind us in line for buying up vaccine stock and they have zero production in their country, so their issue is they generally don’t have enough to go around. Most countries worldwide have had either an orderly rollout or enough vaccines to go around; everyone in every country is complaining about it.

      • I don’t really get Yang’s appeal. He fled for a few months during the pandemic, which in certain quarters is a huge no-no. I was given several options and in hindsight probably should have taken one of them, but I stuck it out. Granted I don’t have children in the public school system. If I had I think we would have been out after about a week since the system has totally collapsed. I think young people seem to like him. Tech, disruption, stuff that makes me uneasy. Thinks there are way too many food carts clogging the sidewalks. Doesn’t quite know what a real bodega is. We’re not living in the same New York, but that’s the beauty and the genius of the city: it’s like one big “create your own reality” game.For that matter I don’t live in BdB’s New York. He’s seldom seen and even pre-pandemic he never seemed to visit restaurants go to shows or bars, just the daily SUV motorcade down to the Park Slope YMCA at some leisurely hour and then a little time in the office. For that matter I didn’t live in Bloomberg’s glamorous “luxury product” New York (by which he meant Manhattan), nor Giuliani’s “there’s a new sheriff in town” New York, nor Dinkins’s “gorgeous mosaic” New York. I think I would have liked Koch but he preceded my arrival. 
         
        Up until recently this didn’t matter, because Emperor Cuomo grabbed us by the nuts years ago and with his Pandemic Powers he’s been micromanaging us for over a year now. But this will change. We’ll get a Mayor who actually seems to realize and care that they live in New York, and if Cuomo wins a fourth term it will be the greatest political comeback since Nixon won the Presidency in 1968. I hope the next Governor will leave us alone, which Pataki and the intervening short-lived governors mostly did. 

        • I mean, I appreciate Yang getting lots of attention for UBI, which is a long overdue idea that we really need to be moving towards. Trouble is, that’s about the only thing I like about him. 

          • He did, and it’s an unquestionably good idea. It’s also the only good idea he’s ever put forth and he was proposing it as a replacement for a lot of other social safety net programs … and that ultimately would have been a net negative for millions of people.

            I can just so easily picture him holding a press conference in February after being elected to announce a “Dogecoin for the homeless” program and just thinking that’s gonna be the thing that turns NYC around.

            • Totally. And his supporters liked pointing out how much moderate and former republican support he had, and it was like well yeah, he’s talking about slashing social services… 

  3. Hmmmm…we wonder why we can’t have nice things?
     
    https://www.dailyposter.com/p/sinema-and-manchin-headlining-event-93a
     
    and this was probably already covered but really needs to be repeated until some top Trumpers go to jail!
     
    Pro-Trump website “TheDonald”confirms detailed plans to storm Capitol and kill members of Congress Apr 16, 2021 6:00pm EDT by Dartagnan, Community If there were any lingering doubts as to the violent intentions and motives of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, those doubts may now be put to rest. From minute details, such as the most effective type of zip ties to restrain elected officials to the most effective methods of killing police officers, the rioters left a chilling and irrefutable electronic trail on a website dedicated to overturning the 2020 election on Donald Trump’s behalf. Prior to Jan. 6, that website, “TheDonald.win,” had generated over 1 million visits per day. A research group called Advance Democracy, formed by former FBI analyst and Senate investigator Daniel Jones, collected thousands of messages posted by pseudonymous users of the now-defunct website in the days leading up to the insurrection. The posts were distilled into a report and provided to The Washington Post. Jones’ group had previously focused on the online effort to mobilize the riot, and it soon became evident that this particular website served as one of the rioters’ primary organizational hubs. As reported by the Post’s Craig Timberg: “The website, TheDonald, played a far more central role in the January 6th Capitol insurrection than was previously known,” he said. “There are thousands of posts — with tens of thousands of comments — detailing plans to travel to Washington and engage in violence against the U.S. Capitol. The ultimate end goal of this violence was, on behalf of Trump, disrupt the Congress and overturn the presidential election.” Because the posters on this site used pseudonyms, Advance Democracy could not identify them; the logical assumption is that the website and its contents are now being analyzed by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to track the former users through more forensic means. As the Post explains, the website itself grew out of a Reddit forum that served for some time as a “safe space” for racists and conspiracy theorists. Eventually, chafing at Reddit’s moderation rules, the forum became a standalone site, with its web address owned by an Army Veteran named Jody Williams. Williams disbanded the site after the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol. The Post article cites a treasure trove of intensely violent comments and discussions on the site in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 assault. Many of those comments clearly go well beyond the aspirational fever dreams of “keyboard commandos,” and involve meticulous and well-coordinated plans, including “shared diagrams of the tunnel systems beneath the Capitol complex,” discussion of travel and funding resources, and most notably, proposed methods to inflict violence, some of which were then employed by the rioters.

  4. I’m listening a bit to the closing arguments in the Chauvin trial….
     
    Tbh, after listening to Judge Cahill’s instructions to the Jury, if *I* were on the jury–even WITHOUT my feelings after seeing Chauvin get off on having the power he did over Mr. Floyd**–if i were on that jury, I’d be finding Chauvin guilty on ALL three counts.
     
    Everything that happened WAS predictable there have been TOO MANY cases of folks dying after being proved, for years now, in MN & WI.
     
    Everything that Chauvin did WAS unreasonable, and other officers explained why it was unreasonable to the court…
     
    Chauvin IS guilty as fuck. Period.
     
    I just hope to God, that the jury sees that, and does the right thing.
     
    Guilty verdicts won’t  solve ANY of the underlying problems in my city & state. One, two, or three guilty verdicts here, it’s NOT going to fix anything…
     
    But it WILL bring a modicum of justice for Mr. Floyd, his baby girl, and the rest of his family.
     
     
    **SERIOUSLY, y’all, NO ONE has really said it out loud, but in those moments when Chauvin ground his knee down even harder, wiggling his hips, and shoving his fists deeper into his pockets, Chauvin looks like he enjoyed what he was doing–imo, in frankly a sexual way–like so many predators do–and it damn well looked like those hands went in his pockets because he was trying to hide exactly how much he was enjoying it… I only was ever able to watch it once, because it was damn disturbing & absolutely sickening…
     
     
    But I’ll never forget seeing ALL Chauvin’s body language in that video–from the microexpressions on his face, to all the things his the rest of his body was doing in those moments… dude was getting OFF on the power he had in that moment, and it was disgusting.😒🤢🤮
     
    The parallels in that footage with Chauvin’s microexpressions, to what happened in cases like Scott Pederson’s, Susan Smith’s, and so many others whose faces & bodies had “tells” in their time on camera–for the others, yes, more often being interviewed in a video–was simply horrifying.
    It was ALL there, in the expressions of self-satisfaction, ego, relishment of power, haughtiness, control, and vulgar fucking pride in his literal position of power, that flashed across Chauvin’s face in those minutes.
     
    Chauvin KNEW what he was doing…. he just didn’t think Mr. Floyd would die that day…
     
     
    Chauvin thought he’d get to walk away that day, because he probably had been able to walk away from shit like that before–god knows he DID walk away from helping to kill someone before, and nearly killing others by himself, too.
     
    Thing is, as an officer in MN, in 2020? Just like those of us in Education, Chauvin KNEW about the dangers of “prone restraint.” 
    We’ve KNOWN about the dangers of proning someone  for YEARS now… I can’t find the story right now, but I remember a student death in one of the states nearby from a few years back, where a young man (a BOY, really!), was proned at a special school/juvenile detention facility, which ended in the boy’s death…. it was talked about for weeks here….
     
    And our own Ed & Law Enforcement groups changed trainings & policies, BECAUSE of that boy’s death, when he was held prone, and adults laid/sat on his back.🤨🤨🤨
     
    The other thing which was constantly  mentioned during that conversation those years back, was the increased risk of proning folks who are Black, because of the increased possibility of them having invisible issues like Sickle-Cell disease.
     
    I ed/child care, we are REPEATEDLY reminded, that it is COMPLETELY unacceptable to put anyone in a prone hold for more than a few seconds… that as SOON as you get them restrained, you must get them onto their back, or in a sitting-up position, with their ribcage unencumbered, so that you don’t unintentionally kill them.
     
    Chauvin went through trainings . He KNEW the same risks my co-workers and I do.
    It’s that simple.
     
    Dude is guilty A.F.
     
     
     

  5. It is such a bummer to hear that so many ppl in the US are still having trouble accessing a vaccine. I have a remark from the future: it’s scarier when you realize everyone you know has gotten the vaccine and only 40% of your state has and they can’t fill anymore appointments which is happening right now near me. Last Friday, New Orleans had 2000 appointments go unfilled at the mass vax center. 

    So I, in a sick way, am happy to hear there is demand not outpaced by supply in other places. I think we are fast approaching that dangerous wall in the US. 😩

    • My NO clients were saying something to me about how now the challenge was to get more vaccines in arms. They all have theirs, and have been working on their friends! 

    • I’ve heard optimistic people trying to say that about Massachusetts – like let’s be grateful demand is so high in our state. I guess, but I just want my goddamn shot. If supply is outpacing demand elsewhere, then Massachusetts should be getting more supply that isn’t as needed elsewhere!
       
      Obviously there’s a bigger problem with demand starting to dip in some places, and we’re going to have to deal with that. Sounds like NM is doing things right with the government approaching people instead of waiting for people to set up their own appointments, and I bet that would do a fair amount. Sure, there are definitely vaccine-averse people, but I bet there’s a huge factor of people just being lazy and not seeking out the vaccine, who would do it if it were made easy. 

      • “but I bet there’s a huge factor of people just being lazy and not seeking out the vaccine, who would do it if it were made easy”
         
        Tbh, this was basically my dad–who is 73, and was eligible in THE FIRST ROUND, herd in MN🙃
         
        He went exactly *one* place (the county services office🙄), and when they told him THEY didn’t have the shot available, he stopped looking/asking….
         
        He sat there for literally WEEKS, without reaching out anywhere else (his town has a VA office, where he could have gotten it, at least two pharmacy chains that offer it, three different clinic/hospital groups, AND he goes to a different Healthcare system in our old county-where he COULD have inquired *before* i called him one day, found out he was then-still-unvaccinated, and told him, “Hang up RIGHT NOW, and CALL YOUR DOCTOR’S OFFICE!”
        They got him in for the first shot, the following Monday (our call, iirc was on Weds.).
         
        He–like SO MANY others–just gives up at the first “No.” rather than looking for a different option.
         
        Part of it because of laziness, part lack of knowledge, but ALSO (and primarily, in his case!), because when he’s dealing with medical stuff, and “information from authority figures” he goes with whatever it is, that he is told first.
         
        Whether that is fact, or fiction… as long as “Someone *important*” told him that info, he just believes it, AND that the info is permanent & can/will never change🙃
         
        Community walk-ins, WITHOUT appointments, AND which scheduld the follow up *right there, that day* are definitely the way to proceed!

        • We’ve been doing walk ins for a few weeks and I think it has helped a lot, but with the two dose vaccines it still means they have to manage to make an appointment for the second. The system prioritizes them but if they are an appointment-challenged type of person….argh. 

        • Yes! I bet there are tons of people like him. Either they tried once, failed and gave up, they watch the news and think it’ll be impossible to get an appointment, they just have too much else going on… There are a million reasons why we would get loads more people vaccinated if the government was taking the initiative. Walk-ins are totally great too, but I think we need to go further and be actively approaching people to offer to schedule them. 

      • Yeah it is totally valid to be frustrated you haven’t gotten one yet. I was at the time too. I think you’re right that a lot of it is laziness – and ppl not feeling a sense of urgency. I think it’s going to take another big wave to light a fire under those people. 

    • Fantastic news! There is a Santa Claus. It looks like Maggie Smith will join? She has said more than once that when the series ended it was probably about time because her character was moving into a humanly impossible age so it couldn’t follow the whole clan into WWII, for example. I once did the math based on clues dropped over the course of the series (Edith, for example, was born in 1897; she says this when she’s hiring a woman for her magazine) and she’s the Dowager Countess’s granddaughter. The DC was a married woman when she had the torrid affair (sort of) with Prince Karagin, and you can guess that that must have been about 1870 or so.
       
      I was underwhelmed by the movie, quite honestly. Some of the season premieres and Christmas specials were better and about the same length. It was nice to see a King George V who actually looked like the real thing. The Prince of Wales (later, briefly, King Edward VIII pre-abdication) showed up in a couple of episodes of the TV series and he looked nothing like the real thing. 
       
      Immaterial. I can’t wait. I hope there’s some deal whereby it’s shown in theaters and also on one of the many streaming services we subscribe to. I was disappointed that the movie skipped right over the General Strike of 1926, although it’s briefly mentioned. Maybe the action will move forward enough that we’ll see the Great Crash of 1929. Lord Grantham sails off to America during one of TV episodes to deal with Cora’s brother’s involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal which causes her to lose her fortune (I guess; it’s a little convoluted) so they are no strangers to financial calamity. 

  7. Got my second Pfizer shot on Saturday, and have had next to no side effects since. A little fatigue on Monday, which, let’s be honest, has been an issue almost every Monday of my life.

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