Stop Pretending We Don’t Know Exactly How and Where This Pandemic Started

Posted on | March 19, 2020 | 2 Comments

Two words you should add to your vocabulary — zoonosis and zoonotic:

A zoonosis (plural zoonoses, or zoonotic diseases) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites that spread from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans.
Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses.

The Wuhan coronavirus is a zoonotic disease. In January — before the liberal media decided Trump was to blame for this pandemic — it was widely reported that the outbreak originated in China’s Wuhan province, specifically in so-called “wet markets,” where live animals are kept and slaughtered on the spot for sale. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was linked to 41 of the first cases of COVID-19 identified in China by early January. In addition to seafood, this market in Wuhan was known for selling meat of “exotic animals”:

The South China Morning Post reported on 29 January 2020 that the market had a section selling around “120 wildlife animals across 75 species.”

From a Jan. 20 report by CNN:

A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected hundreds since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December. Scientist Leo Poon, who first decoded the virus, thinks it likely started in an animal and spread to humans.
“What we know is it causes pneumonia and then doesn’t respond to antibiotic treatment, which is not surprising, but then in terms of mortality, SARS kills 10% of the individuals,” Poon, a virologist at the School of Public Health at The University of Hong Kong, said.
It’s not clear how deadly the Wuhan coronavirus will be, but fatality rates are currently lower than both MERS and SARS. . . .
Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that are common among animals. In rare cases, they are what scientists call zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted from animals to humans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From a Jan. 26 report by ABC News:

Chinese authorities temporarily banned the trade of wild animals Sunday following a viral outbreak in Wuhan, saying they will “severely investigate and punish” violators. . . .
The ban will continue until “the epidemic situation is lifted nationwide” in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus and block potential sources of infection and transmission.
The three agencies also opened a hotline where people can report violations, and called on the public to refrain from eating wild animal meat. . . .
The wildlife ban comes as the new virus accelerated its spread in China with 56 deaths, and 1,975 infections. China cut off trains, planes and other links to Wuhan on Wednesday, as well as public transportation within the city, and has steadily expanded a lockdown to 16 surrounding cities with a combined population of more than 50 million — greater than that of New York, London, Paris and Moscow combined.
Demand for wild animals in Asia, especially China, is hastening the extinction of many species, on top of posing a perennial health threat that authorities have failed to fully address despite growing risks of a global pandemic. . . .
A group of 19 prominent researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the nation’s top universities had called for the government in China to crack down on wildlife markets such as the one at the center of the Wuhan outbreak. . . .
Zoonotic diseases, or those contracted by humans that originated in other species, account for a large share of human infectious illnesses. Not all of them come from the wildlife trade: Rabies is endemic across many species and one of the biggest causes of death in the developing world. But mixing species of wild animals increases the risk of diseases mutating and growing more virulent as they spread in unregulated markets, experts say.
The emergence of such diseases is a “numbers game,” said Christian Walzer, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s health program.
“If these markets persist, and human consumption of illegal and unregulated wildlife persists, then the public will continue to face heightened risks from emerging new viruses, potentially more lethal and the source of future pandemic spread,” he said. “These are perfect laboratories for creating opportunities for these viruses to emerge.”
Researchers have not yet identified a definitive source for this latest outbreak, which like many other viruses can infect multiple species.
One of the first measures taken by Wuhan authorities was to close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where 41 of the first cases originated.

Back in January, while impeachment was dominating headlines in the United States, the liberal media had no problem reporting that (a) this viral outbreak began in Wuhan, China, and (b) it was a “zoonotic” disease clearly linked to the “wildlife trade” in China. At that time, CNN did not hesitate to use the phrase “Chinese coronavirus” or “Wuhan coronavirus” in its reporting, but in a White House press conference Wednesday, a reporter for ABC News scolded the president for “bias”:

President Trump on Wednesday defended himself from the allegations of racism and xenophobia that were leveled in response to his calling the Wuhan coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” telling reporters that “it comes from China” and that “it’s not racist at all” to use the label.
Trump used the term “Chinese virus” in a tweet Wednesday morning, and was asked about why he used the phrase by ABC reporter Cecilia Vega, who referenced “dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans” since the outbreak.
“Because it comes from China,” Trump stated, adding that “it’s not racist at all, no, not at all.”
“It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate,” Trump said. “I have great love for all of the people from our country, but as you know, China tried to say at one point — maybe they stopped now — that it was caused by American soldiers. That can’t happen, it’s not going to happen, not as long as I’m president.”

The Communist regime in Beijing is at fault, not only for its false propaganda trying to blame America for this disease, but also for its mishandling of the initial outbreak of the virus:

A recently published study from the University of Southampton estimated that the global outbreak of the coronavirus could have been dramatically reduced had China’s communist government acted sooner. . . .
The research found “that if interventions in [China] could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively — significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”
The first case of the virus was reportedly detected as early as mid-November of last year. . . .
Other reports place the initial detection of the outbreak in early December, with Wei Guixian, a seafood merchant in Wuhan’s Hua’nan market, being one of the first reported cases. . . .
China waited until January 23, 2020, before quarantining the entire city of Wuhan, which has a population of over 11 million people.
Axios highlighted how China censored people who tried to sound the alarm . . .

How irresponsible is it for (allegedly objective) journalists to demonize President Trump, blaming him for “incidents of bias,” simply because he has told the truth about where this virus came from?

Sen. Cornyn: China to blame for coronavirus, because ‘people eat bats.’ https://t.co/41AJidPEeV

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 18, 2020

The media contend it is “controversial,” and almost certainly “racist,” for a Republican to tell the truth about the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic:

As President Donald Trump receives backlash for comments Wednesday about the coronavirus outbreak that were widely perceived as xenophobic, his allies in Congress have risen to his defense — with one senator in particular embracing his rhetoric.
“China is to blame,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday of the virus, which was first identified in Wuhan, China. “Because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that.”
He proceeded to identify the consumption of such animals as the source of the virus, echoing a since debunked myth that the outbreak began with a woman eating bat soup. The origins of the virus remain a mystery to health officials, even as it continues to spread globally.

It is certainly not a “debunked myth” to explain the zoonotic origins of this disease, nor is the source of the virus a “mystery”:

The consensus among researchers studying the spread of the virus pinpoints COVID-19’s likely origin to a “wet market,” or live animal market, in Wuhan, China
The origin theory for the virus is supplemented by preliminary research into the disease’s genome, as well as the origins of similar diseases. Researchers at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre published the genome of COVID-19 two weeks after cases were reported in late December 2019. Gene sequencing analysis strongly suggests the virus originated in bats and was transferred to humans through a yet-unidentified intermediary species. In early February, Chinese researchers published work suggesting the intermediary species may have been the pangolin (also called a scaly anteater), though this work has not yet undergone a peer-reviewed study.
The conditions for such interspecies pathogen transfer are ripe in wet markets, which are common in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, resulted from a virus transferring from bats to civet cats and then humans. SARS, discovered in 2003, originated at a wet market similar to the one now suspected to be the origin of COVID-19.

Are we clear now? Senator Cornyn was absolutely correct in explaining that the dietary habits of (some) Chinese, which involve markets where multiple live exotic species are kept together and slaughtered on site, are to blame for this zoonotic pandemic. If it is now “racist” to tell the scientific truth — which, I should point out, was first reported by Chinese researchers — then political correctness has become fatal.

Category: China, Health Care, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 03.18.20

Posted on | March 18, 2020 | 1 Comment

– compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The Ninety Miles Mystery Box, Episode #929
EBL: Dropkick Murphys – Streaming Up From Boston
Twitchy: Oliver Darcy Says Fox News Viewers “Much Less Likely” To Take Coronavirus Risks As Seriously As Democrats
Louder With Crowder: ISIS Orders Fighters To Avoid Coronavirus-Infected Countries…Wait, What?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Something Is Going On
American Conservative: The Mystery Deepns Over The Pre-Dawn Police Killing Of Duncan Lemp
American Greatness: China’s Post-Virus Plan To Destroy America’s Economy
American Thinker: Joe Biden, The Manchurian Virus Candidate, also, Can America’s Public Health Elite Survive the “Boomer Flu”?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Over 200 Coronavirus Patients In Cuban Hospitals Including 13 Americans, But Castro Insists Cuba Is Safe
BattleSwarm: Coronavirus Gut-Punches Austin Restaurants
Cafe Hayek: Quotation Of The Day
Camp Of The Saints: On Ideologues As Children
Da Tech Guy: Cows, Trees, Taps & Coronavirus Update, also, The “Hooray You’re Not Dead!” Song
Don Surber: Media Hates Trump More Than Corona-Chan
First Street Journal: Hold Them Accountable! Philly DA Krasner Should Be Held Accountable For Killing Of Officer O’Connor
The Geller Report: Facebook Wrongly Removed News Articles About Coronavirus Due To A “Bug”, also, Israeli Scientist Says We’re Not Going To See Millions Die From Corona-Chan
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, And In Other News From Outer Space…
Hollywood In Toto: Nick Searcy – Stop Being Afraid Of Hollywood Bullies
JustOneMinute: Does Schadenfreude Help At All?
Legal Insurrection: Media Hoaxes, also, Elizabeth Warren Exploits Coronavirus Crisis To Push Unrelated Corporate Reforms
Michelle Malkin: Crisis Socialism – No Bailouts For Open-Borders Corporate Globalists!
Power Line: An Optimistic Take On COVID-19, also, The FDA Strikes Again
Shark Tank: Rep. Mucarsel-Powell Tackles Census Concerns
Shot In The Dark: The Mother Of Invention
STUMP: How To Lose Money Quickly – Trading In A Volatile Market
The Political Hat: Against The Sex Deniers
This Ain’t Hell: Craig “Doc” Glynn – Military Records, also, There’s Always A Solution
Victory Girls: Duncan Hunter Sentenced To Prison
Volokh Conspiracy: Why I’m Not (Yet) Worried About The Civil Liberties Restrictions Stemming From The Coronavirus Response
Weasel Zippers: Biden Adviser Praises Red China’s Response To Coronavirus, also, Medical Device Company Threatens To Sue Hospitals Who Printed Valves For Lifesaving Equipment
Mark Steyn: A Glimmer Of Flattening?

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Category: Linkagery

Fear Not: Why Older Americans Are Less Panicked About Wuhan Coronavirus

Posted on | March 18, 2020 | 1 Comment

Fear can be rational or irrational. If you live in West Baltimore, for example, being afraid of violent crime is entirely rational. Yet even if you live in a low-crime rural area, you may take precautions — a home alarm system, firearms ownership, etc. — without being accused of paranoia, because “better safe than sorry,” right? Some of us spent years of our childhood reciting the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” so that taking precautions is a way of life. At the same time, however, we recited the Scout Law that commands us, among other things, to be brave and cheerful. Courage and cheerfulness are related values; people will not be brave unless they are counseled to be of good cheer and given examples by leaders who exhibit a hopeful and confident attitude.

Part of our training as Boy Scouts was learning the history of our organization. Scouting began as a consequence of Lord Baden-Powell’s experience in the Boer War. Many young British recruits were accustomed to city life, and lacked experience of a vigorous outdoor life. The Scouts were formed to give British boys this experience, to train them for the kind of exertions that might be necessary if, when they reached manhood, their services were needed to defend the Empire.

My parents’ generation survived the Great Depression and World War II — my father was wounded by shrapnel while serving in the Army in France — and they strove to instill in us the old-fashioned values and attitudes which had enabled them to make it through hard times. My Scoutmaster, Jim Cranford, was a Marine veteran of the Pacific Theater who smoked unfiltered Pall Malls and didn’t tolerate whining and bellyaching. My youth football coaches were of a similar mindset. Toughness was a value they highly esteemed.

As a parent, I consider it my duty to transmit to my offspring the values of their ancestors, and so I assume that my children have the psychological toughness not to be irrationally terrified of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Other parents, evidently, have failed in this regard, and their kids have succumbed to needless panic.

This piece hit home for me: Convincing Boomer Parents to Take the Coronavirus Seriously https://t.co/Iqa8O0C6fr by @MJSchulman

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 18, 2020

The linked article by New Yorker writer Michael Schulman begins thus:

Last Wednesday night, not long after President Trump’s Oval Office address, I called my mother to check in about the, you know, unprecedented global health crisis that’s happening. She told me that she and my father were in a cab on the way home from a fun dinner at the Polo Bar, in midtown Manhattan, with another couple who were old friends.
“You went to a restaurant?!” I shrieked. This was several days after she had told me, through sniffles, that she was recovering from a cold but didn’t see any reason that she shouldn’t go to the school where she works. Also, she was still hoping to make a trip to Florida at the end of the month. . . .
I still think of my parents as the grownups, the ones who lecture me about saving for retirement and intervene in squabbles with my little sister. It took a pandemic to thrust me into the role of the responsible adult and them into the role of the heedless children. I’m thirty-eight, and my mother and father are sixty-eight and seventy-four, respectively. Neither is retired, and both are in good shape. But people sixty-five and older — more than half of the baby-boomer population — are more susceptible to COVID-19 and have a higher mortality rate, and my parents’ blithe behavior was as unsettling as the frantic warnings coming from hospitals in Italy.
As I spoke to my peers, I realized that I wasn’t alone. A lot of us have spent the past week pleading with our baby-boomer parents to cook at home, rip up the cruise tickets, and step away from the grandchildren.

Screw you, you cowardly little punk. How dare you pretend that fear-mongering over what is, in fact, a contagion not fundamentally different from that of the common cold is the “responsible” thing to do.

Here’s something from a study I noticed last week: As many as 80% of those infected with the Wuhan coronavirus experience only mild symptoms, and some cases are entirely asymptomatic. They don’t even have a cough or sniffles. They are infected, but not sick. In fact, such asymptomatic cases may explain why this virus has spread so rapidly. What has alarmed public health officials in the U.S. and Europe is not merely the extent of the pandemic, but the rapid increase of cases and the very high death rates in Italy, where nearly 3,000 people have died, including 475 on Tuesday alone. The United States has implemented emergency measures — beginning last month with the China travel ban — in an effort to prevent such an escalation here.

It is said that the course of the pandemic in the U.S., in terms of case numbers and deaths from coronavirus, is lagging roughly two weeks behind Italy’s numbers. If so, this means we could be having nearly 500 deaths per day in this country by early April. That sounds pretty scary, until you realize that, during the 2018-2019 flu season, 35.5 million Americans became sick from influenza, of whom 490,000 people were hospitalized, and 34,200 died. If ordinary flu is killing Americans at the rate of 30,000+ annually, without requiring emergency shutdowns of every bar, restaurant and casino in the country, why are we reacting as if this Chinese virus is the Black Plague? I’m at a loss to explain this, except that Trump is president, and the media are therefore trying to hype this pandemic the way they hyped Russian “collusion.”

That doesn’t mean the danger isn’t real — people actually are dying, and at age 60, I’m at elevated risk — but rather that the risk is being blown out of proportion, as a matter of statistical probability. Like I’ve said before, you might as well spend a month’s salary on Powerball tickets, given the actual odds against you dying of this disease. Here’s the total coronavirus death toll, by country:

China ….. 3,237
Italy …….. 2,978
Iran ……… 1,135
Spain …….. 638
France …… 264

Guess what? In 2018, 36,560 Americans died in auto accidents. That’s about 3,000 deaths per month. Every day, about 100 Americans are killed in auto wrecks. Shouldn’t we shut down the highways?

Risk can only be understood in terms of statistical probability. The U.S. death toll from coronavirus so far is 135 and that’s bad. Death is always bad, but when we put these numbers into perspective — as Heather Mac Donald says, “Compared to What?” — the risk should not induce panic.

Let’s hear from a tough old guy who doesn’t scare easily:

My first encounter with a global pandemic came in October 1957, when I spent a week in my college infirmary with a case of the H2N2 virus, known at the time by the politically incorrect name of “Asian flu.” My fever spiked to 105, and I was sicker than I’d ever been. The infirmary quickly filled with other cases, though some ailing students toughed it out in their dorm rooms with aspirin and orange juice. The college itself did not close, and the surrounding town did not impose restrictions on public gatherings. The day that I was discharged from the infirmary, I played in an intercollegiate soccer game, which drew a big crowd.
It’s not that Asian flu — the second influenza pandemic of the twentieth century — wasn’t a serious disease. Worldwide, this flu strain killed somewhere between 1 and 2 million people. More than 100,000 died in the U.S. alone. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, governors did not call out the National Guard, and political panic-mongers did not blame it all on President Eisenhower. College sports events were not cancelled, planes and trains continued to run, and Americans did not regard one another with fear and suspicion, touching elbows instead of hands. We took the Asian flu in stride. We said our prayers and took our chances.

You should read the whole thing, and everybody should calm down.

Category: Health Care

In The Mailbox: 03.17.20

Posted on | March 17, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.17.20

– compiled by Wombat-socho

Since Chick-Fil-A and the county libraries have both closed, the FMJRA is going to be on hiatus until one or the other opens up again or I’m in my own place with reliable internet again, whichever happens first. Stupid Chinese and their stupid dietary practices!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Liberal Arithmetic – Not Like The Regular Kind
Locomotive Breath: Virus Names Are Usually From Their Regional Origins
EBL: Irish Dancing
Twitchy: Actress Vanessa Hudgens Roundly Slammed For Her Heinous COVID-19 Take
Louder With Crowder: The Entire City Of San Francisco Is Shutting Down For Three Weeks

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #139 – The Fearful Husband Episode
American Conservative:
American Greatness: Louie Gohmert Holds Up House Vote On Coronavirus Relief “Boondoggle”.
American Thinker: Did Red China Panic The World & Steal Our Wealth With A Common Cold?, also, Remember The H1N1 Virus? Me Neither
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily TP News
Babalu Blog: Cruise Ship With Coronavirus-Infected Passengers To Dock In Cuba
BattleSwarm: Coronavirus – The Bullshit Overreaction Phase
Cafe Hayek: Reality Is Never Optional
CDR Salamander: Whither The Supercarrier?
Da Tech Guy: The Silence Of LA, also, No 2nd Amendment, No Return To Zimbabwe
Don Surber: Red China Gave Italy Money & A Virus
The Geller Report: Temple Mount Imam – “We’ll Conquer The World & Rule It Through Islam”, also, Actress Rosanna Arquette Blames Jewish Conspiracy For Coronavirus
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, I Spent The Early Part Of The Morning Shopping
Hollywood In Toto: Andrew Klavan – It’s Only Getting Worse For Hollywood Conservatives, also, Salon Rages The Hunt Is Too Kind To Trump’s Deplorables!
JustOneMinute: Back At Ground Zero
Legal Insurrection: National Abortion Federation – Don’t Let Coronavirus Crisis Stop Abortions, also, Iran Scaling Back Terror Activities As Coronavirus Cripples IRGC
Megan McArdle: A Libertarian’s Unlikely Pandemic Plea – Subsidize Everything
The PanAm Post: Venezuela “Opposition” Leader’s Tirade Against Almagro, U.S.
Power Line: Why Italy & Iran? also, No, Trump Did Not Dissolve The Pandemic Response Office
Shark Tank: Univision Poll Has Trump Beating Biden Or Sanders In Florida
Shot In The Dark: Narrative Multi-Choice
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – A Break From Coronavirus
The Political Hat: Who Teaches The Teachers?
This Ain’t Hell: Tuesday FGS, also, PVT Mike Sleeper – Not An Army Ranger
Victory Girls: Shamrocks, Social Distancing, & Zombie Movies
Volokh Conspiracy: Occupational Licensing Requirements In An Emergency
Weasel Zippers: MSM Reporters Spread Trump Quote Missing Vital Context About Wuhan Virus Repsonse, also Biden Forgets Obama’s Name During Tele-Town Hall
Mark Steyn: Coronapocalypse Now, also, Alien Instincts

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Category: Linkagery

Ah, the Glamorous Life of a ‘Writer’!

Posted on | March 17, 2020 | 1 Comment

Roger Simon on “self-quarantining” as a novelist:

I know — it’s hard to look at the bright side of a pandemic. But take it from someone who has self-quarantined for the better part of fifty years, it’s not always so bad.
That’s what professional writers do, sit alone in a room and work (or try to) for hours on end.
I didn’t realize at roughly age fifteen when I fell in love with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler that the writer’s life was one of loneliness. I thought it was about attracting Bennington undergrads at cocktail parties by bragging about your (unfinished) novel when you weren’t dreaming up your Oscar speech.
I learned quickly.

I never dreamed of being a “professional writer.” My career plan as a teenager was to become a rock-and-roll star, making multi-platinum records, traveling the world, having sex with beautiful groupies. Bennington undergrads? Wow, Roger, talk about aiming low. Anyway, for a few years, I lived a low-budget version of the rock-and-roll dream until, at age 26, I got a job at a weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia.

Being a local newspaper reporter isn’t as lonely as writing novels. You work in an office with other people, you leave the office to interview sources and cover events, and then return to the office to try to file some kind of coherent account before deadline. It was actually kind of fun, especially when I covered sports. After a year or so working in the suburbs of Atlanta, I became sports editor of the Calhoun Times, where in addition to writing, I took along my 35mm camera and got photos as well. In a small town, a local sports editor quickly becomes friendly with all the high-school coaches, and the players and their parents, too. How I loved the “hospitality room” at the annual Calhoun High School basketball tournament! There was a sort of potluck buffet provided by the Booster Club, so for three days in December, I ate for free.

Oh, sweet delicious memories . . .

Is there any gig in journalism as sweet as a small-town sports editor? I realized rather quickly that the secret was to write up each game as if it were crucial, and to hype up the players as if they were celebrities. The top scorer for a high-school basketball team is, in his own mind (and the minds of his parents and peers), a future NBA All-Star, so when Timmy Starr scored 23 points to lead Fairmount High to victory over Banks County, I’d feature a big photo of Timmy with a big headline and a story that conveyed the excitement felt by the most enthusiastic Fairmount fan. Then there was Shea Thurman, the girls’ track phenom at Gordon Central. When she captured four medals at the state track meet, I wrote it up as if she had just returned in triumph from the Olympics.

Here I’ll quote Hunter S. Thompson:

There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not necessarily because I believed all that sporty bullshit, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for. And none of the people I wrote about seemed to give a hoot in hell what kind of lunatic gibberish I wrote about them, just as long as it moved. They wanted Action, Color, Speed, Violence…. At one point, in Florida, I was writing variations on the same demented themes for three competing papers at the same time, under three different names. I was a sports columnist for one paper in the morning, sports editor for another in the afternoon, and at night I worked for a pro wrestling promoter, writing incredibly twisted “press releases” that I would plant, the next day, in both papers.

Alas, there was no professional wrestling in Gordon County, Georgia, but there was a motocross track, and rec-league softball in the summer, and dear God help me, bowling leagues. The secretaries of the leagues would bring their weekly results to the newspaper office, and my job included typing all those results into the system.

Talk about your life of loneliness! You have no idea how tedious it is to be what is referred to in the sports-journalism racket as an “agate maggot.” The box scores, league standings and schedules which fill up one page of your daily newspaper sports section are in what used to be called “agate” type. Somebody has to compile all that agate, and on a large newspaper, this task is assigned to the lowest man on the staff totem pole. At a local weekly paper — do such things still exist? — the sports editor is a one-man staff, and so my job description included typing in bowling league results every week. You could not avoid this task, which required diligence and attention to detail because any error or omission in the printed results would summon the wrath of the bowling-league secretaries, who read every week’s paper with a hawk-eye scrutiny.

Years of typing in bowling league results are like the scars of a combat veteran. Having done my service as an “agate maggot,” I have a lofty contempt for these kids who think their degrees from some elite journalism school entitle them to be political pundits at age 23.

As Professor Reynolds says, Twitter is a “virus of the mind” — any arrogant punk can offer his “hot take” on national issues and attract a following by substituting cleverness for genuine knowledge. You never have to leave the basement, just bleat your partisan snark into the online echo-chamber 280 characters at a time, without doing any work at all. Sorry to sound like a grumpy analog-era fossil, but what these Twitter pundits need is the humiliating experience of being assigned to do some of the obscure drudgery of journalism, reporting on stuff that only the locals care about, or maybe typing in bowling-league results.

These punks have not paid their dues, you see, which is why so much of what they spew out on Twitter is full of errors and spin. They imagine themselves to be “experts” on whatever the story of the day is, so the same Twitter “hot take” crowd who were posing as experts on Ukraine policy a few weeks ago are now experts on epidemiology, and as long as they keep getting a certain number of likes and retweets, their phony expertise is as influential as any other Twitter pundit’s.

Ultimately, all these punks are angling for a cable-TV news gig. They picture themselves on the set of Morning Joe, or being interviewed on CNN by Don Lemon, and this dream of pundit glory signifies to them what “Bennington undergrads” once signified to a teenage Roger Simon, or what the rock-and-roll lifestyle once signified to me. So the Twitter “hot take” is never just 280 characters, but rather an audition for an MSNBC job, and should be discounted accordingly.

Myself, I never harbored such ambitions. I’m just a guy who writes words for a living, and over the years I have learned that the ambition of political influence is fool’s gold. What did Max Boot obtain by his “influence”? A share of the blame for the Iraq War debacle, and the eternal scorn of conservatives once he turned against his former friends.

So I’m never going to change the world, I’m never going to be sitting on the “curvy couch” at Fox & Friends, and I can’t do anything to halt the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. All I can do is to remind you that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Thanks for your support. It’s better than typing bowling-league results.

Category: R.S. McCain School of Journalism

What Trump Did and Didn’t Do

Posted on | March 17, 2020 | Comments Off on What Trump Did and Didn’t Do

At a press conference Monday, President Trump issued “guidelines” to slow the spread of the coronavirus. What should be noted, however, is what Trump didn’t do — he did not announce a nationwide quarantine order. You see, the consensus opinion inside the CDC was that such a nationwide action was advisable, but as Trump noted at the press conference, the threat of the disease is not evenly distributed nationwide. So what he did was to defer to state and local governments to take whatever actions they deemed necessary, based on local circumstances. In the San Francisco area, for example, six counties just got a “shelter in place” order prohibiting any non-essential activity. In Maryland, the governor ordered the closing of all bars, restaurants and gyms. The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut also imposed shutdowns Monday. Restaurant chains also responded: McDonald’s closed its dining areas, offering takeout and drive-through orders only.

For the next couple of weeks, then, much of the country will be in emergency shutdown mode, but not on federal orders. These are state and local decisions, and also decisions by private businesses, so that constitutional federalism is preserved. We are now in a wait-and-see posture: If these measures succeed in slowing the spread of the virus, no further action will be necessary. On the other hand . . .

Well, I don’t want to indulge any worst-case-scenario speculation.

As of 10 p.m. ET Monday night, there had been 4,459 coronavirus cases reported, with 86 deaths. More than half of that death toll (48 people) was in Washington State, where one nursing-home patient who had traveled to China was the source of a disastrous outbreak. Five states — New York (950 cases), Washington (909), California (448), Massachusetts (197) and New Jersey (178) — account for 60% of U.S. coronavirus cases. Given how disproportionately the disease has been confined to a handful of states on the two coasts, it seems absurd to take drastic action affecting rural states in the Midwest. However, until the outbreaks in the coastal urban centers are brought under control, the rest of the country will be forced to go along with the crisis mentality.

We must err on the side of caution. So I’ve got 28 rolls of toilet paper, and the means to defend my family against any marauding bandits. That’s all I can do, except perhaps to urge readers to remember that the Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Thanks in advance for your contributions. I’ll be here in the bunker, hunkered down to protect our toilet paper stockpile.

Category: Health Care

Democrat ‘Rising Star’ Update

Posted on | March 16, 2020 | 1 Comment

Instant Classic AOSHQ Headline:

Former Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate
Andrew Gillum: After Careful Reflection, I Have
Decided to Withdraw From Public Life and
Spend More Time With My Male Escorts

This guy, who had been mayor of Tallahassee, was hailed as an Obama-caliber future superstar because he came within 35,000 votes of Ron DeSantis in the 2018 election for governor of Florida. But a married father of three caught in a hotel room with meth and a naked gay escort?

Former Florida candidate for governor Andrew Gillum disclosed Sunday that he is entering a rehabilitation facility, saying he had fallen into a depression and alcohol abuse after losing his bid for the state’s highest post.
The Democrat’s statement came days after Gillum was named in a South Florida police report Friday that said he was “inebriated” and initially unresponsive in a hotel room along with a male companion where authorities found baggies of suspected crystal methamphetamine.
Gillum . . . was not charged with any crime. The Miami Beach police report said Gillum was allowed to leave the hotel for home after he was checked out medically.
Gillum said in his statement Sunday night that he resolved to seek help after conversations with his family and deep reflection, calling the decision “a wake-up call for me.”
“Since my race for governor ended, I fell into a depression that has led to alcohol abuse,” he said, pledging to work to “heal fully and show up in the world as a more complete person.”

He’s a victim of a mental health condition, you see, and hooking up with muscular male escorts was . . . well, therapeutic. It’s wrong to stigmatize those who seek meth-and-gay-hookers therapy. By the way, isn’t it nice that the Associated Press doesn’t mention the gay-escort angle at all?

Can you imagine any such media consideration for a Republican under similar circumstances? Of course not. If a Republican were caught with a male escort, the words “gay sex” would be in the headline.