2:00PM Water Cooler 1/25/2023 | bare capitalism

Date:


By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Hen Track of the Day

Hermit Thrush, Brown Tract Ponds, Hamilton, New York, United States. “Different Behaviors: Promote. Habitat: Forest, Deciduous Forest, Pond.”

* * *

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to suppose; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are actually a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

Tossing a number of cash to the peasants whereas using by in a single’s coach:

That is the place Democrats are, as a substitute of #MedicareForAll. Kudos, nevertheless, for altering the shopworn “combating for” to “combating like hell for.” Refreshing!

2024

“May Trump Run to DeSantis’s Left in 2024?” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “Trump famously deserted austerity politics upon taking workplace in 2017, presiding over an orgy of tax-cutting and uninhibited spending. And whereas his failed assault on Obamacare included serial efforts to intestine the Medicaid program that gives well being take care of low-income Individuals, he distanced himself from the standard GOP starvation to mess with Social Safety and Medicare, safety-net applications that middle-class voters — and maybe particularly Republican retirees and close to retirees — considered advantages that they had earned. Discarding the inexperienced eyeshade of austerity was one in all a number of voter-pleasing steps Trump took to detoxify conservative politics. Others had been abandoning free-trade shibboleths that the GOP’s white working-class base intensely disliked and downplaying a reflexive defense-hawk tendency that predictably led to unpopular ‘without end wars.’” • The bastard retains asking for my vote. Why can’t Democrats do this? And I really like the idea of Trump shifting towards “the smart middle.” I’ll particularly find it irresistible if Biden and McCarthy begin ginning up a “Grand Cut price.”

“Trump Is Plotting Tips on how to Kick DeSantis ‘Within the Nuts.’ Right here’s His Playbook, So Far” [Rolling Stone]. Personally, I feel that’s giving short-bodied vulgarian DeSantis an excessive amount of credit score. Anyhow: “‘In a Republican main, solely Donald Trump may successfully go after Ron DeSantis for wanting to chop Social Safety,’ a Republican near the 2024 Trump marketing campaign tells Rolling Stone. ‘Trump has a observe file of claiming the proper issues on this concern each in the case of a common election and in addition Republican voters in a main. DeSantis’ file within the Home [on this topic] could be very a lot of the Paul Ryan, privatize Social Safety platform, which is simply not the place our voters at the moment are.’… On the time earlier than the rise of Trumpism in 2015 and 2016, these ideas had been all about constraining authorities spending by repealing Obamacare and pursuing ‘entitlement reform.’ In 2013, throughout DeSantis’ first 12 months in workplace, he voted for a far-right finances decision that sought to steadiness the federal finances in simply 4 years — twice as quick as a competing measure by Ryan that bought the Republican finances wonk lampooned as a ‘zombie-eyed granny starver.’*” • Harsh, however honest. NOTE * Invented by Charlie Pierce in 2012, good one; I had thought Pierce misplaced his thoughts by that time, however I assume not!

“Frozen: Trump’s main challengers balk at leaping into the unknown” [Politico]. “These making ready to problem Donald Trump within the GOP’s presidential main are taking their time, privately discussing the prospect of ready till spring or summer season to get in, in accordance with three Republican strategists acquainted with completely different candidates’ deliberations. A part of it’s strategic: an effort to make another person an early Trump foil. A part of it’s worry: wariness round their very own skill to boost cash to maintain a drawn-out marketing campaign. ‘It’s very, very quiet,’ mentioned Wayne MacDonald, a New Hampshire lawmaker and former Republican Celebration chair within the first-in-the-nation main state. It seems more and more prone to keep that approach for a lot longer than as soon as anticipated. On Tuesday, one probably candidate, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, advised CBS Information it could take a ‘handful of months’ for him to resolve whether or not to run. An adviser to 1 potential presidential candidate has mentioned with members of no less than two different potential candidates’ groups the benefit of a number of candidates saying across the identical time [hold hands and jump], in accordance with one Republican strategist briefed on these talks. The conversations, which befell earlier this month, had been casual. However they recommend a typical recognition amongst Republicans of what the strategist known as ‘power in numbers’ in a main involving Trump.” As a result of that labored so effectively in 2016? Extra: “The proximate reason for the frozen main is Trump, the previous president and solely declared candidate within the race.”

* * *

“Categorized paperwork at Pence’s dwelling, too, his lawyer says” [Associated Press]. • At what level will we get to say “All of them do it?”

Republican Funhouse

“Santos skips White Home occasion for brand spanking new members” [The Hill]. “The reception within the East Room of the White Home was scheduled to start at 5:20 p.m., and Santos was not listed on the White Home’s listing of anticipated attendees. Santos, like all new members, was invited, as is custom each two years. Santos has confronted a controversial begin to his time in Congress, coming underneath hearth for mendacity about his private and work historical past and dealing with questions on his marketing campaign funds. He has rebuked calls to resign from a rising variety of members of Congress. 4 different first-term Republican Home members skipped the occasion, whereas 10 had been listed as attendees, together with Santos’s fellow New York Republican Reps. Nick Langworthy and Mike Lawler.” • One doesn’t “rebuke” a “name.”

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, it appears that evidently persons are truly studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are a lot of updates. So I must do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated submit, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “dwell” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, actually, a tough drawback. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working components of the Celebration reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not fully) these components comprise a community — a Flex Web? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

Word, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Seattle Metropolis Council Member Kshama Sawant Will Not Search Reelection” [The Stranger]. “Seattle Metropolis Council Member Kshama Sawant, the council’s lone socialist and most senior member, introduced Thursday that she is not going to search reelection this 12 months. As a substitute, she and her combating motion will ditch electoralism and launch ‘Staff Strike Again,’ a nationwide marketing campaign that goals to win higher lives and circumstances for employees, good points that Sawant claims [correctly] so-called progressive elected leaders fail to ship. However Sawant did greater than personal the libs: She helped win a $15 minimal wage for Seattle employees, she pushed the council to tax Amazon, and he or she championed renter safety after renter safety in her function because the Chair of the Renters’ and Sustainability Committee. Regardless of her Thursday announcement, Sawant warned her many adversaries to not She’ll battle as much as the buzzer for a lease management set off legislation, a cap on late charges for overdue rents, and ending using credit score checks in rental purposes.” Sawant can flip a phrase too! Extra: “Socialist Various is not going to run one other candidate to fill her seat, Sawant advised reporters. The celebration believes the money and time it takes to run a candidate could be higher spent organizing their new motion.” • May Sawant presumably be the actual deal? Do we have now readers in Seattle?

“Kshama Sawant is not going to search reelection to Seattle Metropolis Council” [Seattle Times]. “At a press convention held on the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Sawant mentioned she’s received election after election ‘not on the idea of go-along-to-get-along politics, not on the idea of wine and cheese with the Chamber of Commerce and the remainder of the institution, however by combating again and changing into a thorn within the facet of the Seattle ruling class.’…. “There isn’t any universe the place you are able to do what we have now achieved, which is win historic victories and arise for the working class, and never get in crosshairs of the ruling class,” Sawant mentioned in an interview late Thursday. ‘They wouldn’t be mad if I used to be not efficient,’ she added. The truth is, Sawant calls criticism from others in politics and enterprise “a badge of honor,” and solely worries that the coverage conversations she has pushed will fade when she leaves. ‘On the one hand I totally anticipate large enterprise, the chamber and institution Democrats to really feel emboldened to convey Metropolis Corridor again to company enterprise as regular, like that they had earlier than me,’ mentioned Sawant, who first made her choice recognized in an editorial in The Stranger. ‘Alternatively, nothing is computerized.’” • No certainly!

* * *

“The Solely Individuals Panicking Are the Individuals in Cost” [Foreign Policy]. From 2020, nonetheless germane: “Lee Clarke and Caron Chess, two researchers at Rutgers College who’re normally credited with coining the phrase ‘elite panic’ argue with persuasive examples that elites worry panic, trigger panic, and sometimes panic themselves, reacting disproportionately to threats. (Clarke has created a set of presentation slides about social conduct in disasters; the ultimate slide, titled ‘Modeling official conduct,’ provides us the evocative bullet factors: ‘Ignorance,’ ‘Conceitedness,’ ‘Hubris,’ and ‘Officers may cause ‘panic.”) Kathleen Tierney of the College of Colorado seemed at elite panic within the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, comparable to when then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco first known as off the emergency response after which threatened shoot-to-kill orders in response to the issue of looting, which as later reporting confirmed was extremely exaggerated. Equally, police from a neighboring parish blocked evacuees from New Orleans from coming into, firing shotguns over their heads, due to their fears of the ‘prison aspect’ based mostly on those self same exaggerated stories of looting and mayhem. The impacts of this, as Tierney notes, embody the direct injury to individuals who had been frightened or unable to scavenge for meals. Tierney asks: ‘How a lot resident-to-resident serving to conduct was prevented or suppressed as a result of individuals had been afraid to enterprise out to assist their neighbors out of worry of being killed or arrested?’ Clarke and Chess write: ‘Planners and coverage makers typically act as if the human response to threatening circumstances is extra harmful than the threatening circumstances themselves.’ That false declare turns into a approach for elites to keep up management and shield their very own pursuits. Usually shielded from the speedy impacts of a catastrophe, elites are typically way more apprehensive about disruption to the established order and the lack of political capital and energy. That they use a long-discredited fallacy in regards to the public behaving irrationally to do that provides insult to harm. It’s additionally a dereliction of responsibility, as a result of whereas lies and exaggerations in regards to the potential for panic worsen a disaster response, working with the general public to take care of the catastrophe tends to enhance it.” • Because the elites are additionally specialists in fomenting panics….

“Protest isn’t terrorism” [Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years]. “[A]cross America, legal guidelines are being rewritten, usually on the behest of company lobbyists, to make dissent and protest way more troublesome. Right here’s a webinar from, amongst others, the veteran activist Marla Marcum detailing the unfold of those anti-protest legal guidelines throughout the coungtry; she stories that solely 5 states haven’t had such legal guidelines introduce…. As Marcum put it, ‘most individuals who hear about protesters charged with home terrorism will course of that data as ‘there are individuals committing terrorist acts’ and they’re going to suppose ‘terrorism is unhealthy,’ and so they received’t query whether or not the label tells any type of fact. As a result of terrorism IS unhealthy. Full cease. However we have to know what the phrases imply in every context the place a prosecutor or politician deploys them.’ And within the case of those new legal guidelines, it simply means: we don’t such as you.” • “We don’t such as you.”

It could be that I’ve to do some rethinking about partisanship:

Readers, what do you suppose? Is that this your personal expertise? How about these round you?

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I’m however a humble tapewatcher, however not like Eric Topol, I’m not calling a surge, as a result of the final peak was Biden’s Omicron debacle, and after an Everest like that, what’s left? Topol’s view is the institution view: Hospital-centric. Mine is infection-centric. I don’t see the common acceleration or doubling in circumstances that I might anticipate to see based mostly on previous surges.

I’m calling a “One thing Terrible.” It’s gonna be unhealthy, in some new approach, and we don’t understand how, but (however see right here for immune system dysregulation, which is trying fairly terrible).

Keep protected on the market!

* * *

• “Critically, why ought to we care about something Twitter trolls need to say?” [Toronto Star]. “Coincidentally, a good friend despatched me a revealing Twitter change final week between two public well being specialists. These two physicians grew to become minor celebrities on the peak of COVID-19 — till their paths diverged. I’ve by no means spoken to Dr. Isaac Bogoch, however at any time when I’ve listened to the recommendation he’s provided on tv (or Twitter) he got here throughout as considerate and measured, by no means contemptuous or fear-mongering. I don’t know Dr. David Fisman, however at any time when I heard his unmodulated musings, I puzzled why anybody would heed him. The opposite day, Fisman (who resigned in protest from Ontario’s science advisory desk in 2021) launched a private assault on Bogoch (who served on the COVID-19 vaccine distribution job power). Fisman berated him for the supposed sin of contextualizing, moderately than criticizing, the reluctance of B.C.’s provincial well being officer to impose a masks mandate anew: ‘Unsure why you’re operating interference for Bonnie Henry on masking, @BogochIsaac,’ Fisman tweeted at him. ‘You’re a sensible man. You perceive replica numbers. That is a fully horrible framing …’ You possibly can learn their tangled Twitter change for your self. However what stands out shouldn’t be a lot Fisman’s puerile argumentation as Bogoch’s extra restrained remonstration — not on issues referring to the scientific technique, however social media insanity: ‘I’ve been reflecting on this thread for a bit,’ Bogoch started. ‘I’ve zero intention to be unkind to David right here, moderately it is a chance to the touch base on the present state of social media/public discourse & our present trajectory (extending effectively past COVID). Abstract: Vey iz mir.’ (Translation, for these unfamiliar with the Yiddish language: ‘Woe is me.’ Or, translated into physique language, it appears like an eye fixed roll.)” • Nicely. Resigning from Ontario’s Science advisory desk appears like a badge of honor to me (“I don’t want to stay on this uncomfortable place, the place I need to select between placid relations with colleagues on the one hand, and the need of talking fact throughout a public well being disaster on the opposite,” Fisman wrote. We’d like extra of this, not much less.) And did you discover that, within the midst of his tone policing, the creator asserts that Fisman’s “argumentation” is “puerile” with out truly displaying it? Earns a observe, as we are saying.

* * *

• One thought for a protest:


* * *

• “Structural Traits That Can Assist Insulate HHS Companies in opposition to Potential Political Interference” (PDF) [GAO]. “A number of senior company officers highlighted how the government-wide coordination required in response to an emergency just like the COVID-19 pandemic can create extra alternative for potential political interference. Specialists and former company heads have recognized structural reforms which will enhance insulation of chosen HHS companies in opposition to political interference in future public well being emergencies. These structural reform concepts embody changing FDA into an unbiased company; making the CDC director a Senate-confirmed place; and decreasing the variety of political appointees on the chosen companies.” • The examine was achieved throughout each the Trump and Biden administrations. I’m actually simply laying down a marker right here; however you may wager that nevertheless the Biden Adminsitration determined to undertake a pandemic coverage of mass an infection with out mitigation, imposed it on CDC and HHS, in addition to the propaganda organs we used to name “the press,” will not be labeled as “political interference.”

* * *

Case Information

NOT UPDATED BioBot wastewater information from January 23:

Lambert right here: For now, I’m going to make use of this wastewater information as the very best proxy for case information (ignoring the scientific case information portion of this chart, which for my part “goes unhealthy” after March 2022, for causes as but unexplained). At the least we will spot developments, and evaluate present ranges to equal previous ranges.

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to group transmission (the “crimson map,” which is the map CDC needs solely hospitals to have a look at, not you.) The map is claimed to replace Monday-Friday by 8 pm:

The earlier map:

NOTE: I shall most definitely not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Group Degree” metric. As a result of CDC has mixed a number one indicator (circumstances) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning signal of a surge, and a poor option to assess private danger. As well as, Covid is a illness you don’t wish to get. Even in case you are not hospitalized, you may undergo from Lengthy Covid, vascular points, and neurological points. That the “inexperienced map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) continues to be up and being taken critically verges on the prison.

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, revealed January 25:

-1.5.%.

Wastewater

NOT UPDATED Wastewater information (CDC), January 21:

Easing off, although you do need to marvel what’s the purpose of a nationwide system the place half the nation has gone darkish.

January 17:

And MWRA information, January 23:

Lambert right here: Nonetheless uptick within the north. Nevertheless, just some the scholars are again; BU lessons start January 19; Harvard’s January 22.

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC right here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, tutorial tempo completely incompatible with defending your self in opposition to a variant exhibiting doubling conduct.

NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), January 9:

Lambert right here: BQ.1* and XBB nonetheless dominate. Nevertheless, CH.1.91 seems for the primary time at 1.9%. That’s somewhat unsettling, as a result of a Tweet in Hyperlinks, January 11 from GM drew consideration to it (“shows such a excessive relative development benefit”) and in Water Cooler, January 18, from Nature: “CH.1.1 and CA.3.1 variants had been extremely proof against each monovalent and bivalent mRNA vaccinations.” Now right here is CH.1.1 within the Walgreens variant information. Let’s see what CDC does with it tomorrow. The Covid variant prepare all the time leaves on time, and there’s all the time one other prepare coming!

Lambert right here: Wierdly, the display screen shot about has been changed as we speak by information from “10/7/2022.” (It’s clearly not present information; BQ.1* and XBB don’t dominate.

NOT UPDATED Variant information, nationwide (CDC), December 31 (Nowcast off):

BQ.1* takes first place. XBB arising quick. CH.1, not like the Walgreens chart, doesn’t seem. (For BQ.1/XBB and vaccine escape, see right here.) Right here is Area 2, the Northeast, the place each BQ.1* and XBB are mentioned to be larger, and are:

Makes clear that Area 2 (New England) varies enormously from the nationwide common. Wouldn’t it’s fascinating if we ended up with completely different variants dominating completely different components of the nation.

• As a test, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, up to date January 24:

• Hospitalization information for Queens, up to date January 22:

Deaths

Dying fee (Our World in Information):

Whole: 1,129,618 – 1,129,145 = 473 (472 * 365 = 172,280 deaths per 12 months, as we speak’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit larger than the minimizers would really like, although they’ll speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could need to resolve that is what the powers-that-be contemplate “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of loss of life and illness).

Lambert right here: Deaths lag, and now we have now some affirmation that no matter we simply went by way of is reducing.

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like every thing else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

There aren’t any official statistics of curiosity as we speak.

* * *

Inflation: “Biden lastly will get a win in opposition to inflation” [Politico]. “Individuals’ common revenue has crushed inflation for the previous six months, pushed by the plummeting value of gasoline, together with drops in furnishings, automobiles and different items. If the pattern continues, it may very well be a lift for President Joe Biden as he gears up for a tricky reelection marketing campaign, undercutting one of many fundamental Republican arguments in opposition to his dealing with of the economic system. ‘Individuals actually understand how far their paycheck goes,’ Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden’s Council of Financial Advisers, mentioned in an interview. ‘When gasoline costs are down $1.70 relative to the place they had been final summer season, that’s the type of respiratory room that individuals acknowledge.’ But that progress may very well be in jeopardy: As Federal Reserve officers put together to satisfy subsequent week to boost rates of interest once more, their inflation-fighting campaign — which Fed Chair Jerome Powell has vowed to proceed — has sparked fears of a recession, that means that employees may very well be pressured to surrender these hard-fought good points.” • Or not pressured, or a lot, if that they had unions.

Tech: “We tried to run a social media web site and it was terrible” [Financial Times]. “A couple of months in the past, FT Alphaville thought it could be enjoyable to host a Mastodon server. Boy, had been we mistaken!” There’s a bullet listing of horribles, however this one stands out: “a=Cloud providers work on the Resort California precept: it’s straightforward to get began however as quickly as you’re in, you’re caught. After only a month our barely seen Fediverse presence was taking over 160 gigabytes and every necessary server improve had an exponential impact on the fee, measured both by money or carbon. Nuking actually does appear the one approach out.” • Price a learn. Additionally, go lengthy Twitter?

Tech: “Microsoft publicizes new multibillion-dollar funding in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI” [CNBC]. “Microsoft on Monday introduced a brand new multiyear, multibillion-dollar funding with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Microsoft declined to supply a selected greenback quantity, however Semafor reported earlier this month that Microsoft was in talks to take a position as a lot as $10 billion. The deal marks the third part of the partnership between the 2 corporations, following Microsoft’s earlier investments in 2019 and 2021. Microsoft mentioned the renewed partnership will speed up breakthroughs in AI and assist each corporations commercialize superior applied sciences sooner or later. ‘We fashioned our partnership with OpenAI round a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI analysis and democratize AI as a brand new expertise platform,’ Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella mentioned in a weblog submit. OpenAI works intently with Microsoft’s cloud service Azure.”

* * *

Immediately’s Worry & Greed Index: 62 Greed (earlier shut: 62 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 56 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jan 25 at 12:27 PM EST.

The 420

“Weed Legalization Supported By Most U.S. Voters: This Week in Hashish Investing” [Kiplinger]. “Help amongst Individuals for federal weed legalization continues to develop. Based on a survey performed by polling agency Information for Progress [ugh], most voters – be they Republican, Democrat or Impartial – help legalizing leisure marijuana on the federal degree. The survey discovered that 65% of Individuals are in favor of the legalization of hashish. And throughout the political spectrum, ending hashish prohibition was supported by 75% of Democrats, 67% of Independents, and 52% of Republicans.” And: “We’ve been following polling information on hashish legalization earlier than we launched Poseidon [the author’s investment firm], and the motion has proven fixed development in help. Whereas Democrats initially led laws round weed legalization, we’re seeing extra Republican states take efforts that help hashish – like these being made towards leisure weed legalization in Florida. These authorized medical and adult-use leisure applications will result in a decline in stigma across the plant. It’s nice that, for the primary time, we’re seeing a majority of Republicans now supporting hashish legalization on the federal degree.”

Groves of Academe

A number of land grant universities:

The Gallery

“Is Traditional Artwork in Hazard at Uncared for Fresno Constructing?” [GV Wire]. Fresno Week at Bare Capitalism continues: “Passing by the Fagbule Glass Home, it’s straightforward to notice the destroyed constructing and overlook the fabulous piece of artwork. It appears like a bomb went off on the location at 1930 E. Shields Avenue, throughout the road from Manchester Middle. The one glass on the Fagbule Glass Home is both damaged panes, in shards across the constructing, or piled within the parking zone. Fires have burned a number of areas across the constructing. Trash is all over the place. A terra cotta aid, “A Day within the Park” by Clement Renzi sits on the facet of the vacant constructing. It’s unimaginable that the 288 tiles that comprise the artwork set up stay undisturbed, surrounded by such a catastrophe. As of Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., the paintings stays intact. Artwork lovers are apprehensive that luck might not final. The questions are — how did the constructing get to be that approach, and what occurs to the artwork?… Lately, earlier than complete dilapidation, the Covenant of Religion Household Church — pastored by Fagbule and his spouse Kemi Fagbule — used the constructing… Insurance coverage claims, Fagbule mentioned, are “dragging.” He estimates it can take $500,000 to restore the constructing — cash he doesn’t have.” • The artwork:

Curiously, the “Fagbule Glass Home” began as a financial savings and mortgage, again in 1982.

Zeitgeist Watch

I thought-about submitting this underneath “Groves of Academe,” however I do suppose it’s extra of a zeitgiest factor. The account is on the College of Arkansas, apparently. The entire thread is price a learn:

If “dogmatic doxastic voluntarism” (DDV) is a factor, that would appear to account for lots. “It’s only a cough.” “Tanks will flip the tide for Ukraine. DDV jogs my memory of a phenomenon I’ve mentioned with Yves that I name “spreadsheet pondering”; it’s the idea — ideology? — that for those who alter a spreadsheet cell — as for instance by altering the cell for Leopard tanks in Germany to a sum of cells for Leopard tanks in Germany, Poland, Spain, and so forth. — that you just essentially change the fabric world (or change it in they approach you anticipate). Maybe spreadsheet pondering comes from the world of finance; I don’t know. DDV should even be akin to what a billionaire feels: They’ll actually purchase something that may be purchased, and so for them, believing is certainly motion; they’ve individuals for the motion half. ““The concepts of the ruling class are in each epoch the ruling concepts, i.e. the category which is the ruling materials power of society, is on the identical time its ruling mental power,” sayeth The Bearded One. Or within the vulgate: The fish rots from the top.

Class Warfare

“Employee Earnings, Service High quality, and Agency Profitability: Proof from Nursing Houses and Minimal Wage Reforms” [Review of Economics and Statistics]. From 2022, nonetheless germane: “This paper finds that larger wages for employees interprets to higher service high quality, measured by improved security, higher well being, and diminished mortality for nursing dwelling residents. These advantages are each statistically important and economically significant. Making use of the common stress sore therapy prices from the earlier literature (Company for Healthcare Analysis & High quality, 2016; Brem et al., 2010) to the purpose estimates in Desk 6 and the estimated improve in nursing assistant pay means that value financial savings from stress sore therapy alone offset between 20-50% of the rise in employees prices. This easy back-of-the-envelope calculation implies that wage will increase within the nursing dwelling sector totally pay for themselves if the worth of elevated longevity for nursing dwelling residents is no less than $23,000.” • Nice, however “worth” to whom?

Information of the Wired

“How antidepressants assist micro organism resist antibiotics” [Nature]. By finding out micro organism grown within the laboratory, a crew has now tracked how antidepressants can set off drug resistance. ‘Even after a number of days publicity, micro organism develop drug resistance, not solely in opposition to one however a number of antibiotics,’ says senior creator Jianhua Guo, who works on the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology on the College of Queensland in Brisbane. That is each fascinating and scary, he says. Globally, antibiotic resistance is a big public-health risk. An estimated 1.2 million individuals died as a direct results of it in 20192, and that quantity is predicted to climb.” • Oops. “Attention-grabbing and scary,” that’s NC!

* * *

Contact data for vegetation: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a test in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photos of vegetation. Greens are advantageous! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you would like your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it initially of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From Angie Neer:

Angie Neer writes: “The bushes round right here (Pacific Northwet–er, Northwest) host a lot of different species. A current wind storm introduced down a lot of branches that seemed like this one.” Wow!

* * *

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Right here is the display screen that can seem, which I’ve helpfully annotated:

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