News blues
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| Each flag represents an American dead of Covid-19 In D.C., 695,000 Flags—and Counting—Memorialize the Americans Who Have Died of Covid-19. ... Each flag, planted in neat squares on 20 acres of grass just north of the Washington Monument, represents one person who has died from Covid-19 in the United States... *** |
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The Lincoln Project - and other mediaLast Week in the Republican Party… (2:06 mins)
Dragon of Budapest (0:55 mins)
Quote:
Italy’s economic experience after the Black Death. “It was a great time to be an artisan… Suddenly, labor was scarce, and because of that, market wages had to go up. The bourgeoisie, the artisans, and the workers started to have a stronger voice. When you don’t have people, you have to pay them better.”
The relative standing of capital and labor reversed: landed gentry were battered by plunging food prices and rising wages, while former serfs, who had been too impoverished to leave anything but a portion of land to their eldest sons, increasingly found themselves able to spread their wealth among all their children, including their daughters. Women, many of them widows, entered depopulated professions, such as weaving and brewing.
“What happens after the Black Death, it’s like a wind, fresh air coming in, the fresh air of common sense,” Pomata said.
The intellectual overthrow of the medieval medical establishment was caused by doctors who set aside the classical texts and gradually turned to empirical evidence. It was the revival of medical science, which had been dismissed following the fall of ancient Rome, a thousand years earlier. After the Black Death, nothing was the same,” said Pomata. “What I expect now is something as dramatic is going to happen, not so much in medicine but in economy and culture. Because of danger, there’s this wonderful human response, which is to think in a new way.”
— The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid
by Lawrence Wright
During these Covid-conscious days, local transit systems protect bus drivers from potential Covid infection by erecting a see-through Perspex door between driver’s cabin and bus interior.
On the way to town yesterday, the bus driver simply had riders enter the bus through the back door, no charge for riding, no need to pass through the Perspex door.
The bus driver on the return trip informed riders before they entered the bus that it was “very crowded, standing room only” (local high schools had closed for the day and many teenagers were on their way home). Passengers like me, determined to enter the bus, paid the fare then passed through the Perspex door. The bus was, indeed, very crowded – social distancing of fewer than six inches rather than six feet – and if a teenager wore a mask, s/he wore it around her/his chins. A crowded bus ride was still better than driving my vehicle.
My appointment was near an upscale grocery store I’d frequented in the past. Yesterday, I dropped by there, to purchase both lunch – pumpkin/apple soup – and, I planned, a bottle of imported British elderberry juice concentrate. Alas, the store no longer carries elderberry juice concentrate. It does, however, carry British imported Marmite.
Marmite, as any Brit or South African knows, is a viscous, blackish, very salty spread made from Brewers’ yeast. Many not brought up on Marmite “sarmies” (sandwiches) find the substance gross. I admit I’m less fond of Marmite than I once was, particularly when the price of a jar is as jacked up as it is in this grocery store. Marmite in SA is less than half the price in California. Nevertheless, stymied in my desire to purchase elderberry juice concentrate, I opted for Marmite. (Elderberry juice would likely have been more expensive than Marmite, too.) Apparently, Marmite is expensive these days as British breweries shut down due to Covid.
The pumpkin/apple soup was good. I sat on a rickety bench outside the store to eat. Pre-Covid, the store offered customers outdoor tables and chairs. Those are long gone.
My car-free trip into and around town stimulated me to further exploration.
Yesterday was the first time, since my return to California on 28 May, that I had time to explore. Covid changes include shuttered stores and fewer shoppers in the streets, but just as many teenagers doing just what teenagers have always done on busses: rough-house, talk loudly, harassed one another – and never, ever, offer a seat to “seniors” as directed by bus drivers and posted signs.
Saturday I plan to board the local ferry and head into San Francisco, perhaps the Museum of Modern Art, or Union Square and other touristy areas.
Sunday, I’ll head back to San Francisco with a friend, again on the ferry, to explore North Beach.
North Beach was, once upon a time, the gathering place for “Bohemians” - artists, writers, and creatives. Alas, I’ve heard that famed City Lights and other famous bookstore, Spec’s bar, the Condor Club (of Carol Dodo fame) have closed. One of our most beloved local poets, Jack Hirschman, with whom many of us met each Wednesday night at Spec’s bar, died recently - one month after my mother’s passing. He was 87 years old.
I’ve been away for two years, but I might run into someone in North Beach that I know from that time….
by Lawrence Wright
Healthy planet, anyone?
The UN’s main human rights body overwhelmingly voted to recognise the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right, and to appoint an expert to monitor human rights in the context of the climate emergency.Okay. That’s step one. Step two and implementation is a way more difficult job. Let’s see how that goes…. Meanwhile, read the article >>
The human rights council passed the clean-environment resolution, which also calls on countries to boost their abilities to improve the environment, by 43-0 while four member states – China, India, Japan and Russia – abstained.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
How do I define luxury? Leaving my vehicle at home and taking the bus to the neighboring town to conduct business by appointment.During these Covid-conscious days, local transit systems protect bus drivers from potential Covid infection by erecting a see-through Perspex door between driver’s cabin and bus interior.
On the way to town yesterday, the bus driver simply had riders enter the bus through the back door, no charge for riding, no need to pass through the Perspex door.
The bus driver on the return trip informed riders before they entered the bus that it was “very crowded, standing room only” (local high schools had closed for the day and many teenagers were on their way home). Passengers like me, determined to enter the bus, paid the fare then passed through the Perspex door. The bus was, indeed, very crowded – social distancing of fewer than six inches rather than six feet – and if a teenager wore a mask, s/he wore it around her/his chins. A crowded bus ride was still better than driving my vehicle.
My appointment was near an upscale grocery store I’d frequented in the past. Yesterday, I dropped by there, to purchase both lunch – pumpkin/apple soup – and, I planned, a bottle of imported British elderberry juice concentrate. Alas, the store no longer carries elderberry juice concentrate. It does, however, carry British imported Marmite.
The pumpkin/apple soup was good. I sat on a rickety bench outside the store to eat. Pre-Covid, the store offered customers outdoor tables and chairs. Those are long gone.
My car-free trip into and around town stimulated me to further exploration.
Yesterday was the first time, since my return to California on 28 May, that I had time to explore. Covid changes include shuttered stores and fewer shoppers in the streets, but just as many teenagers doing just what teenagers have always done on busses: rough-house, talk loudly, harassed one another – and never, ever, offer a seat to “seniors” as directed by bus drivers and posted signs.
Saturday I plan to board the local ferry and head into San Francisco, perhaps the Museum of Modern Art, or Union Square and other touristy areas.
Sunday, I’ll head back to San Francisco with a friend, again on the ferry, to explore North Beach.
North Beach was, once upon a time, the gathering place for “Bohemians” - artists, writers, and creatives. Alas, I’ve heard that famed City Lights and other famous bookstore, Spec’s bar, the Condor Club (of Carol Dodo fame) have closed. One of our most beloved local poets, Jack Hirschman, with whom many of us met each Wednesday night at Spec’s bar, died recently - one month after my mother’s passing. He was 87 years old.
I’ve been away for two years, but I might run into someone in North Beach that I know from that time….
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