Golf Balls In A Jar April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 [First quarter 2020 estimated taxes normally due today are now due July 15 — but the second quarter payment, the IRS explains, will still be due June 15, a month before the first. We live in interesting times.] This video of golf balls in a jar teaches an overarching life lesson in under three minutes. A little sappy . . . but why not? As you may know, Barbra Streisand built a shopping mall in her Malibu basement. No — really. Michael Urie reprises the brilliant off-Broadway one-man show that inspired this Sunday at 8PM EDT. From the Washington Post: Here’s How Long Those Condiments in Your Fridge and Pantry Are Supposed to Last. To which I say: Can you read it? “Best if used by May 3, 2010.” Stored unopened for a decade at ten degrees above room temperature — and just fine. Which I can report with more credibility than usual because it’s not I assuring you of this but, rather, a skeptical young friend who was all set to throw it out. “No!” I cried. “It’s ten years past its expiration!” he countered. “It’s peanut butter,” I explained. “Try it!” He cracked the vacuum seal . . . sniffed . . . took a tiny taste . . . a bigger taste . . . “It tastes fine,” he admitted. That was last week. This morning when I called to check, he remained very much alive. And — lest we go a morning without at least some outrage (“In unprecedented move, Treasury orders Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks“) . . . Brian Schwartz: “Medical staffing companies owned by rich investors cut doctor pay and now want bailout money. Predatory capitalism at its finest. Profit in the healthcare sector sucks, pure and simple. I have a friend who’s appeared on CNN and CBS, a leading management expert with years at Northrup and previous Special Ops warrior for the British Crown. He is dealing directly with the White House and Governors Cuomo, Pritzker, Inslee and others as well as hospitals and foreign versions of both. He is close to the supply chain for medical equipment here in China. He tells me it is the Wild West in the medical equipment business with almost no morals or sense of social responsibility. He has been an establishment guy almost all of his life but at the ripe old age of 63, his mind has shifted left as he witnesses up close and personal the evidence of corruption and dog eat dog world of today’s business environment in the world of healthcare and politics. He is hardly naive, but sees the fault lines as never before. It’s interesting to see his evolution in thinking as the pandemic takes its toll and he is on the front lines of strategizing and implementing the deployment of key medical equipment and PPEs.”
Juggling Insanity In Israel And China April 14, 2020April 13, 2020 JUGGLING: Remember when Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill could laugh together at the end of the day? This is not the Flying Karamazov Brothers, but gives them a good run for their rubles. INSANITY: Set your DVR to record The Definition of Insanity tonight on PBS. Or start — right now — with this one-minute story of a Harvard guy running naked through the streets . . . and how it sparked Miami’s Jail Diversion and Criminal Mental Health programs that are becoming models for the nation. ISRAEL: Two minutes on their response to the virus: https://andrewtobias.com/wp-content/uploads/Israeli-Virus-Response.mp4 And two minutes more on their tele-medicine. (Thanks, Alan!) CHINA: I attended CovidCon yesterday, a virtual two-afternoon conference organized by the Oslo Freedom Forum, focused on the interplay of the virus and authoritarianism. Particularly enlightening, I thought — and yours free for the watching — were Session 1 Censorship In China: The Pandemic Spark (starts nine-and-a-half minutes in) and Session 3, Communist Party: Savior Or Culprit? Near the end of that one, presented by a Chinese dissident, his screen went blank (he later rejoined via cell phone) as, apparently, the authorities disabled his computer. Session 2, was really good, also, as was Session 6: What the Pandemic Has Revealed about Chinese Economic Dominance. (Spoiler alert: they ain’t won the game just yet.) The final session, about the potential for purposely designing a virus far more lethal than COVID-19 — though a little off topic — destroyed any chance of my ever sleeping peacefully again. I don’t know what’s on store for today, but you can watch free starting at noon East Coast time. Wash your hands.
Returning To Normal: The Trade-Offs April 13, 2020 U.S. Projects Summer Spike in Infections if Stay-At-Home Orders Are Lifted. It comes down to this: Restarting The Economy Means People Will Die: So When Do We Do It? And in what stages? Should the Swedes be condemned for their choice? It didn’t have to be this way. Report: U.S. Intelligence Officials Warned About Coronavirus In Wuhan In Late November . . . The White House’s National Security Council, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency were all briefed on the impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, as early as late November, according to ABC News, citing four unnamed sources familiar with a classified intelligence report. The briefing, if true, adds to mounting evidence that the U.S. government could have acted much sooner to contain the virus. An intelligence report from the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence in November, compiled through wire and computer interception and satellite imagery, reportedly concluded that an outbreak of the virus “could be a cataclysmic event.” . . . When you drown the government in the bathtub, people die. “Stories like this one highlight soaring problems for at-risk children caused by the shutdown,” writes a friend who believes policy-makers have thrown themselves at a single goal — avoiding coronavirus deaths — without weighing the costs. “I don’t believe there is any serious solution to mitigating the risk to kids other than reopening schools — and quite a bit of evidence that reopening them would not lead to a large spike in hospitalizations if you exempted at-risk teachers and kids who can’t avoid close contact with at-risk adults. Here’s a discussion on this.” His point: It’s time for rational discussion of the painful trade-offs we face.
No, Seriously: WILL We Let Democracy Die? April 10, 2020April 11, 2020 But first: The Zoom Where It Happened! And now: two pieces on the modern equivalent of whether America sticks with democracy, a la Franklin Roosevelt . . . or goes fascist, a la Charles Lindbergh. (Hey, it happened in Germany, it happened in Italy. Watch HBO to see how it could have happened here). You’ve probably already read this first one: Authoritarian rule may be just around the corner. Paul Krugman. But this may also be of interest: 2020: Democracy Will Be On The Ballot. (“This is precisely how fascism takes over.”) Arguably, The Revolution Is Under Way Already. (“Far from making Americans crave stability, the pandemic underscores how everything is up for grabs.”) Will we go the Franklin Roosevelt way (and likely move closer to universal health care and affordable college and higher taxes on those who can best afford to pay them) or the xenophobic, populist Charles Lindbergh way? None of this is a reference to the fact that our crude, vulgar president (“I’d like to punch him in the face”) kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. But there’s no question that he did. The only question is whether there was any significance to its having been there. He would say no, no significance at all; but because he constantly lies and misleads, it’s hard to be sure. Have a great weekend. If you’re in a position to help, click here.
What Your Kid Should Be Doing June 1st-5th April 9, 2020April 8, 2020 But first: > If you know someone who would like to develop health care skills that could lead to a career — and/or just help out during this crisis — visit Volunteer Surge. The training is all from the comfort of your home — as is some of the volunteering. > If you’d like to avoid dementia and exercise your brain the way Tom Brady does: BrainHQ. > If your college kid happens happens to think it’s really important Democrats win, she or he has a few more days to apply for this 6-day on-line intensive training designed to get her or him a paid, full-time organizer job on the 2020 general election in AZ, FL, GA, MI, NC, PA or WI. And speaking of college kids . . . Marketing mega-mogul Seth Godin is launching a free, full-scholarship, program for college students “looking to level up this summer and learn the real skills needed for when they join the working world.” Monday, June 1 – Friday, June 5. Admission by application only. Check it out: The Emerging Leaders Program,
The Most Qualified President Ever April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 But first: “Some Good News” with John Krasinski. (You know: the guy from” The Office.”) It’s had 8 million views, so I might not be the first one to suggest it you. (Thanks, Upworthy.) If you just want to get out of your room for a bright, sunny — calming — walk in the woods, close your eyes and breathe in the cold pure air. And now: Back to to dystopia. Don’t believe everything you read! (“What We Pretend to Know About the Coronavirus Could Kill Us.”) It’s a really important, scary story about the way misinformation is spread. It reminds me of the ease with which a man turned his shed into the #1-rated restaurant in all of London . . . even though it had never served a meal. Or of how my college classmate came to believe Hillary diverted $2 million from the Clinton Foundation to pay for her daughter’s wedding. Or of how your fellow reader, Tom, ends all his emails with: “Donald Trump, the most qualified President ever!” Consider this timeline: Jan 8th – First CDC warning Jan 9th – Trump campaign rally Jan 14th – Trump campaign rally Jan 18th – Trump golfs Jan 18th – HHS Secy Azar tries to warn of pandemic, but Trump focused on flavored vaping ban Jan 19th – Trump golfs Jan 20th – First diagnosed case of coronavirus in the US. Jan 22nd – “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” Jan 27th – Joe Biden lays it all out in USA Today Jan 28th – Trump campaign rally Jan 29th – Navarro memo warning of 500K deaths and $6 trillion cost Jan 30th – Trump campaign rally Feb 1st – Trump golfs Feb 2nd – “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” Feb 10th – Trump campaign rally Feb 12th – Dow Jones closes at all time high — 29,551.42 Feb 15th – Trump golfs Feb 19th – Trump campaign rally Feb 20th – Trump campaign rally Feb 21st – Trump campaign rally Feb 24th – “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” Feb 25th – “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling coronavirus.” Feb 25th – “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” Feb 26th – “The 15 [cases] within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Feb 26th – “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” Feb 26th – “This is a flu. This is like a flu.” “Now, you treat this like a flu.” “It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.” Feb 27th – “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Feb 28th – “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” Feb 28th – Trump campaign rally March 2nd – “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” March 5th – “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!” March 6th – “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.” March 6th – “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” March 6th – “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” March 6th – “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.” March 7th – Trump golfs March 8th – Trump golfs March 8th – “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on coronavirus.” March 9th – “This blindsided the world.” March 17th – “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” March 23rd – Dow Jones closes at 18,591.93 March 25th – 3.3 million Americans file for unemployment April 2nd – 6.6 million Americans file for unemployment April 3rd – McConnell blames Impeachment for the response to coronavirus. April 6th – “You should say, ‘Congratulations. Great job,’ instead of being so horrid in the way you ask a question.” (A Fox News reporter asked about testing.) There were warnings. So many warnings. Stay safe.
1,000,000 Volunteers April 7, 2020April 8, 2020 But first: Attention: A Love Story — “consistently interesting, beautifully written” — was published today. This review is consistently interesting and beautifully written as well. And speaking of good books: Albert Camus’ The Plague — in 10 minutes. I had never heard of The School of Life until Glenn sent me that (thanks, Glenn), but the very next clip after The Plague was Dostoyevsky in 14 minutes and now I can finally learn all the things I was supposed to learn more than half a century ago, when I was a “Slavic Languages and Literatures” major. All I remember from The Brothers Karamazov was the epigraph . . . “Verily, verily, I say unto you! Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John, 12:24) . . . all but the verb for “bringeth forth” I can recite to you in the original. Of the thousands of pages that followed, I remember only that many years later, at a Broadway matinee accompanied by two borrowed children, I handed The Flying Karamazov Brothers, who boast they can juggle anything, a large open tin of finely-ground chocolate protein powder. But I digress. If you know someone who would like to volunteer during this crisis, either on location or from the comfort of their homes, send them to Volunteer Surge, a project launched today to train 1,000,000 health care assistants. The on-line courses are free . . . 10 hours for tele-volunteers, 30 for those who will be on site . . . and have the support of General George Casey (US Army, Ret.) who ran the United States Army, and Dr. Sten Vermund, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health. As General Casey says in the video volunteers will see when they complete one of these courses: “Thank you for your service.” Oh! And wait! Need a face mask but have no bandana handy? (“Yes, we have no bandanas . . . “) Use a yarmulke!
Two Listens: A Minute And An Hour April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 Nobody. https://andrewtobias.com/wp-content/uploads/Nobody.mp4 Listen to Al Franken and economist Austan Goolsbee. An hour of sanity and humor that reminds us, once again, what a tragic over-reaction it was to force Al out of the Senate. Dark scenarios can all too plausibly flow from our current circumstances. Read Fareed Zakaria. (Want even bleaker? Umair Haque.) But it’s also possible a pill will come along that gives us time to up our game. Once something works, everything changes. From an investment point of view, I don’t see such a happy development sending the Dow back to February’s 29,522 any time soon. But who cares where the Dow is, if we can emerge from all this and hug each other, smarter than before? Seriously chastened, we could pull together to confront future pandemics, climate change, creeping authoritarianism . . . and the other mega-challenges the future holds. Maybe we’ll move toward universal health care. Higher corporate taxes. Higher estate taxes on billionheirs. Maybe we’ll borrow trillions not to pay people to stay at home because, in contrast to South Korea, we failed to halt the virus; but, rather, to revitalize our crumbling infrastructure. “Make America great again.”
Why? Why? Why? Who? Watch! April 3, 2020 Why is God DOING this?! (The pastor who pooh-poohed the virus, then died of it.) Why is Florida doing THIS?! (Allowing folks to pack churches, despite the risk.) Why Is South Korea doing so much better? (“The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life.”) Who is to blame? “Don’t just blame President Trump,” writes top Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, author of the forthcoming It Was All A Lie. “Blame me — and all the other Republicans who aided and abetted and, yes, benefited from protecting a political party that has become dangerous to America. Some of us knew better.” He is taking personal responsibility — watch! It is to weep: Know someone in a swing state who wants to get a job on the campaign? And earn $500 in the meantime, taking a 6-day on-line training? Still two weeks left to apply. Spread the word. Have a great weekend. As suggested Thursday: make these weeks count! (Here’s an even better bow-tie tutorial even I might be able to follow. Thanks, Jonathan.)
Make These Weeks Count April 2, 2020 Don’t sit paralyzed waiting to see what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is that you’re going to be fine. So set some goals and come out the other end with a sense of accomplishment. I need hardly tell you (so forgive me), but: every day is precious! One easy one, to start you off: commit to 15 minutes a day of BrainHQ. Peer-reviewed studies suggest that by the time the world reopens, you’ll have meaningfully reduced your odds of ever developing dementia. What a gift to your loved ones! You will also have sharpened your reflexes and reduced the likelihood and/or severity of a car crash. (Really: studies back this up.) Free, unless you upgrade. (Please upgrade: I’m a shareholder.) And do you know what a chicken sexer is? One of the many things I learned listening to Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything — in just over six hours at 1.5 speed. It might inspire you to spend an hour a day building your memory skills. “You, too, can have an amazing memory.” You already knew that (use mental pictures to help remember things), but Foer brings it all wonderfully to life. So here we are, taking up just 75 minutes of your quarantined day, yet by the end of this thing you’ll have totally tuned up your brain. Leaving you time to watch all 100 Greatest Movies Ever Made, build a deck off your back stoop, write your will (finally!); learn to tie a bow tie, learn Spanish (so when you do take the Costa Rica trip originally planned for this month, you’ll be fluent), master PowerPoint, Photoshop and Excel; volunteer on-line (or maybe here). Maybe blow $11 on these, and start with one push-up. Wait 60 seconds, then two. Then 60 seconds and three. (I’m talking good push-ups, back straight, all the way down, all the way up.) You think you can get past 16 this way? Don’t feel bad if you only get to 10 or 12, and “consult your doctor before embarking on any strenuous exercise.” Start slow, and gradually become a man of woman of steel. Why not? Maybe blow even more on this blood pressure monitor. It’s fun, and if yours is too high, now’s a good time to find out. What a great staycation! Revel in your minimal carbon footprint! Make your own mask in 60 seconds with a T-shirt and scissors. You don’t even have to speak Czech. And save some time to watch truly dumb videos, like this one.