*record scratch*
Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how an ostrich like me ended up in this situation…. pic.twitter.com/vaFIVYMSaw
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) May 12, 2020
Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche are having a quarantine brunch and arguing about what makes for a good Bloody Mary.
Marx: As long as it’s red.
Freud: As long as it’s like my mother’s.
Nietzsche: As long as it’s strong. And if it doesn’t kill me, please make it stronger.— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) April 19, 2020
Thin silver linings…
The coronavirus is hurting super-rich people that have gotten stuck in high-tax locales, unable to travel to places where tax rates are lower.https://t.co/woCBtO0eeJ pic.twitter.com/MsJ13zV097
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) May 12, 2020
i feel like lethargy is gonna make a big comeback https://t.co/eOHhSMeN4j
— golikehellmachine (@golikehellmachi) May 12, 2020
Kent
The horror! Can we get more of that please?
chopper
i’d ask what specific cause of death is ‘king’s evil’ but i don’t want to know.
Omnes Omnibus
Nice that mother and wolf both made the scoreboard.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Scrofula – it was believed that a riyal touch could cure it.
BC in Illinois
OK, go back to that list from 1670.
169 people died from the “rising of the lights.”
I’m not sure I have been tested for that recently.
Alex
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s a form of tuberculosis so gathering in large groups to be healed probably not great for public health. But what the heck is “blasted and planet”?
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Royal, damn it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alex: I am not a 17th century physician. Blast you, sir!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BC in Illinois:
philpm
@Alex: I’d like to know what blasted and planet is too?
Also, really liked “frighted.”
Jeffro
Worst.
“Choose Your Own Adventure”
EVER!
(I’m talking about this timeline, not that ‘London diseases’ scorecard)
?BillinGlendaleCA
This site is helpful in figuring out what some of the causes of death are.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Would you like me to use the wayback machine and correct that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: are you a medieval barber at least?
?BillinGlendaleCA
It’s sometimes speculated that Trump suffers from “Softening Of The Brain”.
Alex
@?BillinGlendaleCA: this post on how to read bills of mortality also very interesting https://beforenewton.blog/tag/bill-of-mortality/
Sab
@chopper: King’s evil was scrofula. That was TB outside the lungs, usually the lymph nodes.
I don’t have a cite, but in 19th century USA 1/3 of non-elderly deaths were from TB.
My great grandmother died of it at 32, as did her entire nursing class. Might have caught it from patients. Might have caught it from unpasteurized milk.
ETA Sorry. I forgot this was a respite thread.
WaterGirl
Anne Laurie, I love how discussion of death and causes of death is now semi-respite. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: No and no. There is always a place for lawyers.*
*What that place may be….
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
“Show me on this doll where the king touched you.”
;)
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Yeah, a riyal touch is only operative in Saudi Arabia.
:)
HumboldtBlue
I posted this earlier but it still fits.
What has Obama ever done for us?
oatler.
A priest a nun and a rabbi walk into a bar and the priest says “I don’t think I need to be in this joke.”
h/t Jonathan Katz
Steeplejack
@Sab:
In some ways death by tuberculosis does feel like a respite from the Trump/coronavirus timeline.
Quaker in a Basement
Overlaid. That’s how I want to go.
Alex
@Quaker in a Basement: overlying deaths were infants who died of suffocation, SIDS, or smothering. Often controversial even at the time over whether they were homicide.
Mary G
Only one wolf, but in London. Very cool, thanks AL.
Another Scott
I was just doing my nightly look at the https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ numbers and noticed something.
Maybe a decent metric of progress and “are we over the hump” is the ratio of Recovered cases / Active cases:
USA: 318,027 / 1,052,654 = 0.302
Spain: 186,480 / 58,845 = 3.169
Russia: 53,530 / 196,410 = 0.273
Italy: 115,288 / 76,440 = 1.508
Brazil: 79,479 / 109,687 = 0.725
France: 59,605 / 91,840 = 0.649
Germany: 150,300 / 16,747 = 8.975
Sweden: 4,971 / 20,082 = 0.248
UK: N/A
Of course there are lots of reasons why the numbers might look the way they do (where they are in the exponential curve, etc.), but this seems to be a reasonable, simple number to see what countries are doing well, and which ones are still having major issues.
Sweden is well-known for doing almost nothing to lock down the economy. Its very low ratio of 0.25 reflects that. The US and Russia are very close as well. Germany is doing something right.
It seems we need to get the ratio at or above 1.0 to have a reasonable quick and dirty estimate that things are on the right track.
tl;dr – we’ve got no business opening everything up as if the worst is over. As we know.
Cheers,
Scott.
Alex
@Sab: that’s terrible to think of all those young nurses. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources infected half their lab staff this year in the process of testing 25,000 sawn off deer heads for bovine TB. Luckily it wasn’t resistant so the result was not tragic.
Jackie
@Sab: My paternal grandmother died of TB 1923. My Dad was only 5 yo. He missed her everyday of his life. He passed at 99.5 yo and his mom was among his last words. I truly hope they are reunited.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Another Scott: We look like we’re over the hump only because the totals include the New York numbers because they’re so large. And that’s all I’ll say about that in a respite thread.
HumboldtBlue
SFjazz.org will replay Monsieur Perine tomorrow.
A repeat of a 2019 concert.
Another Scott
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “semi-respite”.
;-)
Harpo!
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@BC in Illinois:
These days, we call it ‘bizarre Christmas light hanging incidents’.
trollhattan
Once I learned proper haggis is made inside a sheep’s “lights” I never thought of lungs in the same way.
Jeffro
Here’s a respite for everyone: The Great Realisation.
Time to dream of a finer world tonight. And then work to make it happen.
Quiltingfool
Very off topic: The power went off in our area this evening. Therefore, the ceiling fans stopped. My cat has a thing about ceiling fans, ever since she was a kitten. Anyway, she is sitting on my lap, the fan quits working and bam! She gets a terrified look on her face, jumps down and races off to the bedroom, and that ceiling fan is off! Under the bed she goes! The power is back on, but it has taken her awhile to feel safe – fans on! Cat happy! My husband says the cat has OCD. Does anyone else have a cat that reacts to changes in the surroundings? Thank goodness I don’t rearrange furniture, not sure what the poor thing would do.
Sab
@trollhattan: Haggis is fall. Why are we talking about it in spring?
Sab
@Quiltingfool: Did you know they still make treadle sewing machines? Apparently sophisticated. Make buttonholes. I am sorely tempted.
OT from your comment, but I thought you might want to know.
John Revolta
@oatler.: That ain’t the way I heard it!
A priest a nun and a rabbi walk into a bar. Bartender says, “What is this, a joke?”
Sab
@Quiltingfool: We have five cats. That alone makes them nuts. Some of them like others of them, but they all only like one cat, and the others dislike other cats. Junior high school on steroids.
My favorite cat is everyone’s favorite cat. That is a coincidence. My second favorite cat every cat hates because he is new here and not healthy. (Cats are not nice people.)
Martin
@Sab: Amish quilters. There are a lot of them.
HumboldtBlue
@Quiltingfool:
My dad was a self-taught do-it-your-selfer and he did a lot of work, from Philly to Dover, the man made cabinets, turned staircases, paneled the fucking house in what can only be described as 1970s-summer-camp-pastiche, installed a solar-powered plexiglass water heater on the side of a 19th century Victorian (Popular Mechanics schematic if I recall) and yet the most amazing thing that man made — other than me — was a quilting frame for our mother.
The quilts sewn from that collection of love warm our clan to this day.
@Martin:
The Amish women taught my mother to quilt.
khead
@Mary G:
And his hair was perfect.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Some spelling Nazi you turned out to be….
Jackie
@Sab: At one time we had 6 cats who really didn’t like each other, but tolerated each other. 4th of July fireworks would cause them to all hide under my bed – like wagons in a circle – butts in, faces out, not looking at each other. One of those I’ll pretend you’re not here, if you’ll pretend I’m not here moments.?
joel hanes
@Sab:
My maternal grandmother could, and did, whip out seven flannel nightgowns with rickrack trim and five sets of boys pajamas in a single pre-Christmas week using her old black treadle Singer. (I’m pretty sure she did the buttonholes and buttons by hand.)
The PJs she made for me when I was seven had rockets and cratered planets on a blue background.
An old farm girl, she had a real spinning wheel in the upstairs bedroom that she never used as an adult, but kept, I think, to remind her how much easier things were in the 1950s than they were on the hardscrabble Indiana farm of her youth.
joel hanes
@John Revolta:
Bartender says, “What is this, a joke?”
I’m a frayed knot
SiubhanDuinne
True confessions time:
I just ate the last of the 2020 Thin Mints, and now I have a big sad.
laura
Purely coincidental that I experienced a griping in the guts this very evening.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Look, I even corrected myself. And I am okay with obvious typos in a quick reply environment like a blog comment section. I am not a great typist, so I tend to only call out typos when the result is interesting. Leaving out a silent w at the beginning of a word is not a typo; it is a spelling error. Damn it.
The Lodger
@joel hanes: A priest, a nun, and a rabbit walk into a bar. “Dammit!” says the rabbit. “I’m a typo!”
Omnes Omnibus
@The Lodger: Well played.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: you can buy them online now, just in case you find that information useful.
then they would no longer be the last Thin Mints
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks, but that takes all the seasonal ritual away. These things must be done delllicately.
Brachiator
@joel hanes:
A hungry ant walks into a tavern and asks, “Where’s the bartender?”
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay then.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, I, for one, am glad we cleared that up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: also, they sell them in those single-serving sleeves
joel hanes
@SiubhanDuinne:
I want you to be happy.
You can purchase Girl Scout cookies online at least until 30 June. They’ll probably be shipped from a council in some western state.
https://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookie-care.html?zip-code=95051#buy-cookies
smike
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dammit, Jim! I’m a Realist, not a Didactic!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That seems pointless.
SiubhanDuinne
@joel hanes: That’s uncommonly thoughtful of you, but Girl Scout cookies, most especially Thin Mints, would just taste weird after mid-May. I shan’t think of them again until February 2021, when the Wheel of the Year once again turns to that most sacred of times. But thank you, sincerely.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: @SiubhanDuinne: I think it is important to buy them in person from an actual girl scout.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course. That’s the most important part of the ritual.
JustRuss
@Quiltingfool: When we adopted my mom’s cat, she was terrified if the ceiling fans were on. she got used to them eventually, took a month or two.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Seasonal sweets talk reminded me I never linked to this at the right time.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s my preference too (full disclosure: I once worked a summer at a Girl Scout camp, and my mom and one of my sisters have been council presidents and active in the national organization. I can sing an amazing number of Girl Scout songs.) I think it’s most fun to buy from a Brownie troop.
But SARS-CoV-2 put a premature end to in-person sales this year, and many councils are stuck with unsold inventory on which they need to recoup costs.
Yutsano
@joel hanes: This has been bookmarked for later use…
Luciamia
I pick “Quinsy. ” I always liked that tv show.
Mary G
@joel hanes: I ordered some, just to support the troop. Chose Western Washington state over Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington and Oklahoma. Petty and unfair to the girls, but I don’t want to support a red state. Donated two boxes to be given to Covid19 first responders another reason to choose WA.
Amir Khalid
An approximately musical interlude: for no real reason, the Portsmouth Sinfonia!
Ms. Deranged in AZ
I honestly don’t know what I would do without you silly Jackals.
My favorite cause of death in the list: Mother. No further explanation needed IMHO
John Revolta
I wanted to call bullshit on that ostrich but then I saw the board laying on the floor next to it, which appears to be cut from the same tree only farther in, or out………….pretty cool
VeniceRiley
Oooh how about the list of reasons you could get thrown into an asylumn? Links like this
https://valmcbeath.com/victorian-era-lunatic-asylums/#.Xr5BCURKjZ4
In other news, I checked and California is so PRO LOVE and family that you can actually quit your job and get unemployment under these conditions:
Marriage
Department policy with respect to claimants who quit to be married is equally applicable to either males or females. Quitting to be married will be with good cause provided:
opiejeanne
@Quiltingfool: My cat, Annie, was terrified of ceiling fans when she was young, especially if they were running. We don’t have one in this house, but she used to travel with us in the car and some of the places we stayed had those and she would hide under the bed until it was time to leave.
opiejeanne
@Luciamia: Haha!
Quinsy is tonsillitis. It is what killed George Washington.
joel hanes
@Mary G:
Girl Scouting is a pretty progressive organization in any state.
The national organization thoroughly rewrote the program materials in the early seventies, with a very humanist, diversity focus — eliminated every bit of race, gender, sexual identity, cultural, religious prejudice they could find.
Way ahead of most organizations in that respect.
Aleta
No plague deaths listed in 1670 (unlike a few years earlier). My partner’s ancestor died in London in 1660. Cause of death: hung, drawn and quartered.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@Aleta: Wow, I think that kind of sentence was reserved for treason, regicide, etc. Was his ancestor someone famous?
Anne Laurie
Tonsillitis as a symptom of strep, IIRC. Which could very easily be deadly, especially to small children and the elderly with weakened immune systems.
cliosfanboy
@Brachiator: “Really?’ The grasshopper said. ‘You have a drink named an Irving?'”
WaterGirl
@The Lodger: That’s cute. My dad would have loved that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: He could have been one of these guys (from Wikipedia article on 1660):
Dupe1970
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks. I am stealing this to use for weird disease names in my D&D campaign.
Richard Guhl
In Restoration England six percent of the population died from tooth abscesses. Imagine the excruciating pain. Thank God for antibiotics and root canals.
Another Scott
@joel hanes: Thanks for the pointer. I just donated 5 boxes to “Veteran’s Medical Center and First Responders” somewhere in Virginia.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Anne Laurie: GW being bleeded/bled/gebleded a few times didn’t help either, as I recall.
“Oh, you’re weak and feeling bad? Let’s drain your blood!!”
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Maybe that was the original “seemed like a good idea at the time”!
Quaker in a Basement
@Alex: That makes it more likely I’ll end that way, not what I had in mind.
J R in WV
So the grasshopper says: “Really? You have a drink named an Irving?”
That’s really, really funny joke. Thanks for sharing it… you do have to know that a grasshopper is a drink, tho.