SocraticGadfly: Texas progressives talk coronavirus, week four

April 07, 2020

Texas progressives talk coronavirus, week four

As with the past three weeks, this outpost of the Texas Progressives is breaking the weekly roundup of news and politics into two parts — coronavirus and all the other stuff.

The first week of the COVID roundup is here. For the March 23 week, the same split is in effect. More coronavirus news here. And ditto for the March 30 week; COVID news here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6.

We do have good news related to the coronavirus. Per the NYT, genetic sequencing now gives us more of an idea of how it works.

With that, let's dive in.

Socratic Gadfly looks at a major casualty of coronavirus in Texas, perhaps a fatal one — the Texas icon Half Price Books — and wonders if it can survive even as a shell while he reminisces about many years of shopping there.

We're going to have some Twitter embeds as part of this week's take.

Like this:
If only we could force Danny Goeb to work as a CNA in a nursing home for a week or two.

Or the related, which nails Gov. Strangeabbott:
Sorry, folks.

And this:
Yum.

OR this:
I mean, he does look like he's about to stroke out.

Or, on the lighter side, this:
Or ABC fellating Shrub Bush for warning about a pandemic in 2005 while ignoring:
And also ignoring:

Seriously, the MSM's three-year pattern of anointing Shrub Bush as a stable genyus is almost as bad as folks in Oslo, Norway, giving Barack Obama a gold medal.

OK, what's happening elsewhere?

Houston may be a growing coronavirus hotspot as we speak. But Abbott won't tell us that, because the state is HUGELY bad in testing. New York State has tested 7x as many people per capita. Many medical professionals in the region say there's a good chance it will wind up as bad as at least Detroit and New Orleans.

The Trib (and I am sure others have done so, too) profiles the work of Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. The Dallas Observer notes that, per Jenkins' working ahead of Gov. Greg Abbott, he's now extended Dallas County's emergency declaration through May 20, though shelter in place is still just through April 30. Per Our Man Downtown objecting to what's an essential business, how many South Dallas pawnshops are owned by Friends of JWP? And, who besides wingnuts for virtue signaling are pushing for Hobby Lobby to be an essential business because they sell a few things that could be used to make emergency masks?

COVIDIOTS include UTIODIOTS who went to Cabo.

More than 1/4 million Texans filed for unemployment.

Abbott, like Trump, has promised to help doctors and hospitals with medical supplies, and failed.

Contra Trump suck-up Mike Liddell, the Pillow Guy, who said he could make 48,000 masks a day by last Friday (and presumably hasn't), Rice engineering faculty and students may actually make a makeshift ventilator. (I Tweeted Liddell and no response.)

Grits is back, and talking coronavirus, jails and Abbott.

National

Expecting that stimulus to actually work? Remember who's managing it.

Also note that Trump is apparently stealing COVID supplies that other countries were importing, diverting them to the US. On the other hand, this an RT piece, so it doesn't mention any Putin nefariousness.

Global

Indian novelist Arundhati Roy calls out nationalism, sectarianism and other bigotries that may be on the rise, starting with the Hindutva-focused government of her own India. I quote-tweeted the piece and tagged Hindutva lover Tulsi Gabbard. I am sure she'll ignore it, and that her stanners will ignore her history. That said, per Roy, Modi looks more and more Trumpian in his mismanagement of all of this.

Whether through political PR lying or plain idiocy, by graying their lines on a graph, Bloomberg claims that Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan have flattened the curve. No they haven't.


And, claiming they have has the potential to fuel claims (ultimately racist, or the closely allied cultural essentialist) that there's an Asian secret sauce. Well, India's part of Asia, and there's clearly no secret sauce. So, it then gets narrowed to "east Asian secret sauce." Still doesn't exist, obviously.

Also, it's "strange" or "interesting" that claims of Japan flattening the curve not only aren't true, but that new case numbers are starting to increase again after the Olympics has been scrubbed for this year.
Labels:
at Tuesday, April 07, 2020 Posted by Gadfly

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

Since I posted this, parts of Japan have gone on to a tighter lockdown and South Korea had a mini flare-up. Singapore is already worried about the second wave.

11:20 AM, April 20, 2020

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