Anti Social Social Distancing Club
May 1, 2020
“After all, people judge one another according to their own feelings. It is only the miser who sees others enticed by money, the lustful who see others obsessed by desire.” ― Irène Némirovsky
“What speaks to the soul, escapes our measurements.” ― Alexander von Humboldt
Keep Your Friends Six Feet Away, And Your Enemies Also Six Feet Away
It’s certainly possible for good friends to have philosophical, even moral, differences of opinion. If that was the case BC, aka Before Coronavirus, the rule of thumb was simply to avoid discussing religion or politics when together. But the current reality — a proven, deadly, communicable disease and its safeguarding-everyone’s-health corollary — is changing relationships. “Even if you have a fundamental disagreement about being pro-life, pro-choice, [for or against] marriage equality, often those things [can be] kind of hypothetical,” one young man said. “But there’s something so immediate about this. If you flout these social-distancing protocols, you are endangering exponentially increasing numbers of people.”
Suppose you’ve been faithfully following the advice of medical experts — staying home, social distancing, wearing a facemask when in public — and you have friends still throwing parties, going to protests, attending whatever public events haven’t been canceled, you may have discovered a bright line between which values you can accept in a friend, and which ones you can’t. It’s difficult to learn that a friend holds a belief you find abhorrent. But in this pandemic many people are losing friends, questioning their friends’ morals, or finding their friendships strained because friends are blowing off precautions.
When people are anxious about the future and worried about their loved ones, it’s much harder to forgive and forget; we have less patience for those around us. And all those weeks of pent-up emotionality and uncertainty mean situations can quickly become volatile. Even ordinarily polite, tolerant individuals may suddenly explode when encountering strangers who disregard health rules and encroach on personal space.
- What the 1918 flu pandemic tells us about whether social distancing works (Guardian)
- Americans Are Not Going to Wait for Sufficient Testing (Atlantic)
- Half of U.S. states easing coronavirus restrictions as jobless numbers grow (Reuters)
- Opinion | Baby Boomers Were Blasé About the Coronavirus? Why Did We Believe That? (NYT)
Amir Levy via Getty Images
The Nonjudgment of Gantz-Netanyahu Pact: One, Two, Three Strikes, You’re… Actually, Maybe We Can Try Four Strikes
- Benny Gantz had opposed Benjamin Netanyahu through three elections to determine who would be prime minister. Gantz had vowed to topple Netanyahu and insisted he’d never serve under a premier facing criminal charges. But when neither man won enough of a majority to form a government alone, they found a way to compromise.
- They came up with an unusual power-sharing agreement in which Netanyahu would serve as PM for 18 months, during which they would be required to agree on most major decisions. Thereafter Gantz would take over for 18 months.
- But opponents of Netanyhu mounted legal challenges to disqualify him and void the coalition agreement; Israel’s Supreme Court is to hear arguments on Sunday. Netanyahu’s trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust is set to begin May 24.
- On Thursday Israel’s attorney general, who had issued the criminal indictment against Netanyahu, appeared to reverse himself when he issued an opinion that said neither the pending criminal charges nor the unusual terms of the coalition agreement with his former rival should disqualify Netanyahu from forming a new government. (NYT)
- Additional references: Judgment of Solomon and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
Rahman Roslan via Getty Images
If You Can’t Handle The Heat, Stay Out Of Our Warehouse
- A Chinese company on the US government’s blacklist for allegedly helping Beijing detain and monitor Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, has made a $10 million deal with Amazon to provide thermal cameras for taking workers’ temperatures during the coronavirus pandemic. Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. Ltd shipped 1,500 cameras to Amazon this month; at least 500 of the systems are for use in the US.
- The Amazon procurement, which had not been previously reported, is legal because the rules control US government contract awards and exports to blacklisted firms, but do not stop sales to the private sector. (Reuters)
- Amazon investors told to ‘take a seat’ as demand jumps (BBC)
- The US Army is reportedly banning all drones from China’s DJI (Quartz)
- “Amazon emerged as one of the big winners of the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, announcing it had revenues of $75.4bn in the first three months of the year – over $33m an hour.” and “Bezos has seen his fortune swell by $13bn this month to $145bn” from Amazon posts $75bn first-quarter revenues but expects to spend $4bn in Covid-19 costs (Guardian)
- Opinion | Who’s Profiting From the Coronavirus Crisis? (NYT)
- Nasa picks Bezos’s Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX to build new lunar landers (Guardian)
COVID-19
- How quickly we humans will be forgotten by animals: Though Closed To The Public, Bryce Canyon Still Teems With Life (NPR) & Japanese aquarium urges public to video-chat eels who are forgetting humans exist (Guardian)
- With Trump’s Coronavirus Response, U.S. Forfeits Global Leadership Role (NPR)
- Many world leaders have seen double-digit polling surges amid coronavirus. Trump isn’t one of them. (Vox)
- Coronavirus: Trump seems to undercut US spies on virus origins (BBC)
- Coronavirus: Russian PM Mishustin tests positive for virus (BBC)
- Revealed: the inside story of the UK’s Covid-19 crisis (Guardian)
- European Slump Is Worst Since World War II, Reports Show (NYT, $)
- No one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end (The Verge)
- What We Don’t Know About the Coronavirus (New Yorker)
- Millions Had Risen Out of Poverty. Coronavirus Is Pulling Them Back. (NYT)
- Energy Use in the Coronavirus Era: NYC Is Waking Up Later (NYT)
- The Coronavirus Is Especially Deadly in Nursing Homes (Atlantic)
- Decomposing Bodies Found in Rental Trucks at Brooklyn Funeral Home (NYT, $)
- ‘A Terrible Price’: The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America (NYT)
- Pence staff threatens action against reporter who tweeted about visit to clinic without surgical mask (WaPo, $)
- When you’re spending a lot more time indoors than you used to, it’s easy to lose track of your health and wellness goals. There is nothing wrong with packing on the pounds during quarantine, but you can also use this time to up your wellness game and try to get healthier with some help from Noom. So let’s all try to avoid having COVID-19 also reference the same thing as Freshman 15.
- By combining the power of artificial intelligence, mobile tech, and psychology with the empathy of over 1,000 personal coaches, Noom helps people live healthier lives by changing their long-term habits for the better.
- Noom focuses on significant, lasting outcomes. Weight loss is just the start. For example, small “non-scale” victories are also important; things like gaining confidence and having more energy.
- Each Noom user receives coaching from professionals trained in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to help them identify and change the habits that have been holding them back.
- We know that weight loss is hard – both to start and to maintain – but by helping people train their brain, Noom helps ensure the hard work is worth it.
A Different Kind Of Viral Marketing
- On March 27, as emergency rooms in New York and across the country began filling with coronavirus patients struggling to breathe, President Trump posted a tweet urging Ford and General Motors to “START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!” The tweet attracted thousands of replies, one of which struck an equally urgent tone: “We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT.”
- It was from Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley specializing in mobile phone technology, but with no apparent experience in government contracting or medical devices.
- On March 30 New York state paid Oren-Pines $69.1 million for 1,450 ventilators — an astonishing $47,656 per ventilator, at least triple the standard retail price of high-end models. Not a single ventilator ever arrived. A state official, speaking on background, said New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force.
- “The guy was recommended to us by the White House coronavirus task force because they were doing business with him as well,” the official said. A senior adviser to Governor Cuomo said: “We had no choice but to overturn every rock to find ventilators and other needed equipment,” referring to the state’s scramble to find critical medical equipment as the pandemic overtook New York. “States were forced to fend for themselves to purchase lifesaving supplies to combat a global pandemic….” The state has now terminated the contract and is trying to recover all of the money it paid Oren-Pines. (BuzzFeed News)
- Stewart Brand Is 81—and He Doesn’t Want to Go on a Ventilator (Wired, $)
- How a team of NASA engineers developed a ventilator for COVID-19 patients in just a month (The Verge)
The American Dream Wakes Up
- Local leaders in cities and states across America say they are facing an urgent financial crisis that would mean dramatic reductions to their workforces, threatening millions of critical public-sector employees and first responders at a time when many Americans need their government’s help the most. Mass layoffs have already begun in the wake of the pandemic in places like Michigan, Ohio, California and Texas.
- Officials warn education, sanitation, health and safety programs are at risk of falling into disarray unless Washington intervenes. President Trump and top Republicans have contended only big-spending, liberal-leaning states are to blame for mounting budget woes, but the economic havoc is far more widespread.
- Democratic and Republican mayors and governors alike are facing shrinking finances and major revenue gaps which, without federal aid, will result in a rapid increase in unemployment numbers. (WaPo)
- US GDP Declined in First Quarter, With Worse Economy to Come (NYT, $)
- Stocks Are Recovering While the Economy Collapses. That Makes More Sense Than You’d Think. (Time)
- Opinion | States Are in Crisis. Why Won’t Trump Help? (NYT)
The New Hot Workout Trend: Four Second Abs
- A surprising and timely new study shows that even a very small amount of time spent exercising throughout the day can have positive benefits. For example, just four seconds of high-intensity exertion repeated periodically each day might counteract some of the unhealthy metabolic consequences of sitting for hours.
- Past studies at the University of Texas of healthy young people, who volunteered to sit all day for the sake of science, showed higher-than-normal levels of triglycerides in their blood the next day after a fatty meal. The sitting had left their metabolisms less able to break up and clear away the fat. But the research also suggested that a single workout may not be enough.
- When the young people interrupted another full day of sitting with a one-hour run, they continued to experience difficulties with fat metabolism the next day. The Texas researchers speculated that the long hours of sitting might have changed the volunteers’ physiologies in ways that rendered them “resistant” to the expected beneficial metabolic effects of physical activity.
- Experiments done for the new study, published in April in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, suggested that breaking up sitting with frequent, intense and extremely abbreviated exercise — a mere four second workout — “can undo” some of the adverse effects of being sedentary. (NYT)
Daily Pnut Laughs
Perhaps this will be the next health craze: sleep as much as you want and then wake up jacked, How Bears Come Out Of Hibernation Jacked.
Yes, it’s obvious that we love movies, music, and art. Here are some life affirming and uplifting movies around the theme of waking up:
- Awakenings Trailer (Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro, nuff said), Awakenings reminds us of Rain Main Trailer (Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, nuff said)
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Trailer
- Additional song: Arcade Fire – Wake Up.