My favorite chapter of Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil is "Epigrams and Interludes".
The philosopher chooses to collect a wide array of various thoughts
and place them into one chapter. I have decided to post my
observations about the Covid-19 virus in the same vein instead of
writing several posts. Enjoy.
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Quite a few people were screaming on Facebook for Tate to shut it all down. Our cartooning Will Rogers even jumped into the fray with one of his better pieces:
Yes, I laughed my ass off when I saw this one.
However, there is one small detail everyone forgot. Read the Mississippi Code:
Governor Reeves is a big boy. He ran for the job and won. Taking arrows is part of the job. However, if the Governor is going to take heat for not shutting things down sooner, the State Health Officer should be right with him, catching the same blame because he had the same power under state law.
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Speaking of the State Health Officer, it is funny how many reporters think the Governor appointed Dr. Thomas Dobbs. They really don’t know the State Board of Health appoints the State Health Officer. He is completely outside of the Governor’s authority. But the Tater Haters don’t really care about that little fact, do they?
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One possibility ignored by our leaders. There is no cure or vaccine for Covid-19 virus although there are some promising treatments. All we are doing right now is “flattening the curve” so our health care systems are not overwhelmed.
What happens if the virus flares up again in two to three months? We simply can’t afford to keep society shut down for months. At what point are we forced to let the thing run its course and take our lumps?
What happens if the virus flares up again in two to three months? We simply can’t afford to keep society shut down for months. At what point are we forced to let the thing run its course and take our lumps?
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Speaking of pain, watch this video. I know, this probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Forget the February Flood. Coming up is the Divorce Deluge. Give these people another month or so of staying and the dockets will runneth over with divorce petitions. Such is already happening in other countries as well as part of this country. Nothing like familiarity to breed contempt.
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Some people want to blame Trump, some want to blame Obama, some want to blame the media, some want to blame Ole Miss. It’s just what they do. Step back and look at the big picture.The truth is, we suck at planning for disasters. We always have, we always will. It doesn't matter what the disaster is, the story remains the same: bumbling bureaucrats, senseless rules, and stupid turf fights that ignore reality. We blew it on Katrina. We set up a "wall" before 9/11 and paid the price. We ignored the signs before Pearl Harbor and got our butts kicked in the first battle against the Germans. Such a record is nothing new. Look at how many times the Romans got clobbered at the beginning of every war they won.
It doesn't matter who is in office because we always focus the short-term future until a real disaster bites us in the ass. Unfortunately it takes a Katrina or Pearl Harbor to remind us there are some things bigger than our petty little selves.
However, there is a silver lining. Once we get off the canvas, we tend to figure things out and do what needs to be done. Our hurricane responses are much better after Katrina and there have been no major terrorist attacks in American since 9/11. There will probably be a complete restructuring of our ability to respond to pandemics.
We have been so successful at beating infectious diseases, we quit taking them seriously and are now paying a price for it. That is the way of human history: Adversity creates strength, a long period of peace follows, creating weakness.
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Yet another health care system faces the challenge of Covid-19 infecting its employees. Becker’s Hospital Review reported: More than 700 employees of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System have tested positive for COVID-19, the health system confirmed to Becker's.
Adnan Munkarah, MD, executive vice president and chief clinical officer, said Henry Ford has tested nearly 2,500 employees since tracking began March 12, and the majority have tested negative. However, as of April 6, 734 employees, or 2.1 percent of the health system's workforce, have tested positive. Positive cases include employees not working directly on the front lines or those who contracted the virus in the community. Many of the employees who tested positive over the course of the testing period have returned to work.
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I’ll confess. When I first read the proclamation urging our churches to ring their bells, this scene is what immediately popped into my head: I really did get too wrapped up in that show.
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Shut down orders are fine but let’s be realistic about it. People can’t go without money. Give this order a couple of weeks and at some point, it will be ignored more and more. For example, most barbers have their own tools. How long until they start calling their regular clients and offer to come to their homes? That is just one profession. Massage therapists usually have their own portable tables. Mechanics often have their own tools. You get the idea. We can't even stop speeding or the smuggling of weed. This order will only work for so long before it is ignored out of necessity.
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Jackson wasn't playing today. It covered Parham Bridges Park with yellow tape. Some poor schmuck decided to use the walking trail. The police rewarded his efforts to stay healthy with a nice warning amplified by a loudspeaker. Hope it wasn't this guy:Meanwhile the bums still harass the frontage road intersections. Maskless, of course.
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A large share of Covid-19 victims are Black. The word “disproportionate” is used to describe this problem. There is not a scientific rule that says diseases must affect a certain percentage of each ethnic group. Viruses don't know anything about quotas or disparate impact analysis. The Louisiana Covid-19 statistics state the vast majority of patients have pre-existing conditions of hypertension, obesity, or diabetes. New York states less than 3% had no pre-existing conditions. Age is a factor as well. Viruses aren’t social justice warriors. Viruses don’t read The Nation. Viruses simply feast where they can or in other words, they wreck shit and move on.
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A man says let's not forget the Tea Party Twins. These posts have aged really well.
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But a girl says other statements have aged like Mad Dog 20/20. She says remember this press release by Jackson Lord Protector Chokwe Antar Lumumba:
One shouldn't be too surprised as the Lumumbas were originally Marxists.
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So when China threatens to cut off export of medications to America, does that include Fentanyl?***
Speaking of China, the Chicoms were none too happy with this cartoon:
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Is there anyone this post hasn't ticked off? 
21 comments:
My hat is off to you Kingfish! This is spot on and needed to be said. The comment about the Health department is accurate and this agency needs an overhaul. There are problems that go far beyond the current situation.
My question is when do we stop the shutdown of the economy and just let the chips fall where they may? 1. Come up with a quick and safe test, test the heck out of the population. 2. Have companies big and small take temps, practice good hygiene before anyone can come in building. 3. Use data to find out what groups need to be quarantined and then enforce quarantine. 4. If need be quarantine hotspots across the nation. If we don’t come up with a plan to restart the economy soon then I could see the USA falling into an economic depression that will make the Great Depression seem mild. If Trump is too big a lightning rod to deliver this message ( I hate politics) then have someone else deliver the message!
It's going to be a lot harder to restart the economy than it was to shut it down. People aren't going to forget how contagious and deadly this thing is. Many people will continue to social distance.
If schools go back in the fall, they will shut down if there is a flareup. How do you have high school and college sports if one person getting sick means half the team getting sick? How do you have conventions and conferences? You can't make people go. Plenty was shutting down before the government got involved, like South by Southwest in Austin. Stuff like that is not starting back because some people think we need to take our lumps for the sake of the economy.
How many people are going to hang out in the Grove before a game? Go to a Saints game? Get in a crowd on Bourbon Street? Fly somewhere for 2 days?
There will be no V shaped recovery. We'll be lucky to be back to economic normal in 2 years.
How about all the empty beds at outpatient centers just sitting empty waiting for COVID 19 patients while we push all non emergency cases back a month. Many in pain by the way knee replacements hips etc... not to mention doctors not getting paid. It's sickening. I hope Tate pays dearly. I know my family has. No cases means no money. Furthermore I have been forced to push patients back that are in need and pain. Why you ask? Bc we might need the 5000 beds. Just kidding tate preached sky is falling. As for Dobbs... he needs to go.
I love the new 'Peoples Republic of China" flag suggestion.
It's much more symbolic of what really results from
Communism.
Ok Doctor 1:55, and if that knee replacement goes bad, what hospital you gonna send me to? The hospitals wanted the elective surgeries stopped, you can't put that on Tate.
And how about rehab? Who is going to do the rehab for a 65 year old who just had a knee replaced? I'm not going to get blamed for him dying because he caught the China virus. The people you want to cut on so you can pay for your third condo are the very people that are at risk of dying from this thing.
2:46 Touche ;-)
A few economic truths from a book I am reading by Conrad Black called FDR Champion of Freedom......when FDR took the oath of office on March 4, 1933 the unemployment rate was 33 percent, the stock market had lost 90 percent of its valuation, 5,000 banks had failed, 32 states had closed ALL their banks, 1 in 2 homes with mortgages had been foreclosed, and the US financial system was on the verge of collapse. Rural area were desperate for farm price relief and urban areas had seen a huge spike in murder rates and suicides. My mother is 99 and she lived through the Deperession in the Delta and she can still to this day remember the horror of those years. I hope we do have a V shaped recovery because I am not made of the strong stuff my dear mother is! I hope for the best for my country.
@2:46
Hospitals didn't want to delay elective cases... they make an average of $700 more for an elective case than an emergency case. Plus hospitals only want to keep the surgeons happy as that is there income source. You actually think the hospitals decided this? They were mandated. 2:46... what line of work are you in? Your quite funny.
1. I totally agree about Dobbs.
2. I totally agree with you about us fumbling disasters. Also, it helps when you don't cut funding/contingencies set up in the first place. The feds messed this up big time. It just is what it is.
3. "Taking lumps" don't mean nothing when people are afraid to come out the house anyway. Until we get a national surveillance plan set up and access to very large scale rapid test, all we can do is sit on our hands. The money is already gone.
Not irritated by your post in the least. It shows that we need to be educated and motivated in making smart, fact based, decisions.
1:55 is obviously an orthopedic surgeon, the specialty that knows the least about epidemiology and medicine. Don't listen to this fool. They learn what they need to know to do well on the tests in med school and then dump the information. Basically carpenters who work on the body. Trust me, I know. My wife is an orthopedic surgeon and I'm an anesthesiologist/intensivist. She's a great surgeon and knows the orthopedic literature like the back of her hand, but is pretty clueless when it comes to internal medicine type stuff. Also orthopedic surgeons do pretty well financially. Not sure what he has to complain about in the 'loss of income' department, especially when you consider there are many minimum wage workers who are out of a job right now. Think of others my friend.
Cross posting from today's stats thread because it's the single best thing I've seen on visualizing the effect of: no abatement, social isolation, testing and tracing, community to community spread, quarantining, etc.
https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs
I'm sure Reeves will be fine, seein' as how this blog has offered him protection from any negative posts/commentary since the day he took office. Never have I seen such a suck-up. One or two posts being blocked is business as usual...but, fifty or more?
Marshall Ramsey.
LOL.
3:13 - it took Pearl Harbor and WWII to pull the US out of the Depression. Hopefully, it will not take anything so extreme now.
I hear ya KF,
I also spent way too much time watching GoT.
However seasons 1 through 4 were really cool !
Many orthos are small business owners, which I think will be critical in driving the economy. It's easy for me to forget that and just focus on how much money I think they make (compared to me).
The bottom line is that politicizing this epidemic from the outset is what caused it to become an epidemic.
Mixed messages from those in charge and politically and economically driven decision making only made it worse. We learned nothing from China's political CYA behavior nor can we seem to learn from countries who have had better success.
KF, I'm disappointed in you that you continued to politicize the epidemic and amazed that you said it was Germany, not Japan that attacked Pearl Harbor and Japan we fought first.
Also, for all those so inclined, judging a child based on his parents' political views is ridiculous. Hillary Clinton's parents were Goldwater Republicans. And, Stanford isn't Berkeley. As it turns out, Jackson's mayor's decision was good but those of you rebelling against safety measures sabotaged what worked well other places.
Six tough weeks from the minute we knew about China's outbreak and this would have been over. All we had to do was stop all travel out and in except by citizens who would have to quarantine for 14 days. I know plenty of people who " got" that China had had visitors in and out and travel within. The smartest doctor I know " got it" and made sure her parents ( in a place with an international airport) and high risk friends to shelter in place immediately and stock up on 2 months supply of food. She also told younger relatives and friends to wash hands repeatedly and not to get too close to strangers physically.
I've been sheltering since the second week in Feb. because I know that doctor knows more about viruses and genomes than I do. And, I knew people here in Mississippi that were travelling overseas. Indeed, some went AFTER the warnings about a dangerous virus with pandemic capability.
"KF, I'm disappointed in you that you continued to politicize the epidemic and amazed that you said it was Germany, not Japan that attacked Pearl Harbor and Japan we fought first. "
Are you that stupid?
This was a good read.
One thing I hope comes from this pandemic is that more people follow the guidelines for preparedness from ready.gov and take disaster preparedness seriously.
You don't have to fo overboard. But make sure you have at least 14 days worth of provisions for everyone in your household.
And if you have the space then go for 3 months of provisions for everyone in your home. Buy things you already like to eat. And rotate your stock by either eating it or donating it to food pantries before it expires. You will never have to deal with a panic again.
We got lucky this time. If one of these Coronavirus outbreaks mutates into a 48 hour killer like in the movies and we react like we did this time, we are toast.
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