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Bitter Despair is the New Black

You are here: Home / Archives for Bitter Despair is the New Black

The Measure Of An Epidemic: New Coronavirus Units

by Tom Levenson|  April 6, 20209:18 pm| 83 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Bitter Despair is the New Black, Decline and Fall, Get Mad You Sons Of Bitches, The Republican Crime Syndicate, Their Motto: Apocalypse Now

Let’s review:

The first confirmed COVID-19 death on US soil occurred on March 1, 2020.   four p.m. EDT on April 2, 2020,  the United States’ cumulative coronavirus death toll hit 5,808.  Four days later, that number crossed the 10,000 line. There’s a long history behind the saying that while any one death is a tragedy many deaths —a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million— become statistics, but it certainly applies now:  the American pandemic has entered its statistical phase.

The Measure Of An Epidemic: New Coronavirus Units

This much is known about the tragic start to America’s  epidemic.  The first person to die  was a man in his fifties, who had been hosptialized in King County, Washington.  His name was not been released at the time, but it’s possible to reconstruct a part of his story: he was someone in the middle of a life who, only a week or two before its end, had no reason to think he faced his last days on earth. That’s a story we can tell ourselves; a loss we can recognize; a human being, however anonymous, we can mourn.

That one death is a marker in more than just timing.  Health officials noted one key fact about that particular case.  The dead man had no connection to the original coronavirus outbreak in China. He caught his disease here, from someone else in the United States who was already infected, in what is called “community transmission.” President Trump reacted to the news of his death within hours—by imposing travel restrictions on Iran.  That gesture was preceded by reckless inattention, to be followed by a disastrous series of performative decisions by the Trump administration that has produced the current best-case scenario of 100,000 to 240,000 Americans dead by summer.

It’s virtually impossible to grasp the losses implicit in such large numbers. When quantities break the bounds of ordinary experience they begin to disappear from view.  That’s the challenge: to see into what’s happening now, to extract from mere numbers both memory and meaning.

Here’s one way to do so: on September 11, 2001 2,996 people were killed in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC.  As I write this on April 3, the US has already suffered almost two 9/11s.

Another: between 1956, when the first American died in the conflict, and 2006, when the last American fatality attributed to the war was recorded—half a century–58,220 members of the US armed services died in the Vietnam War. COVID-19 has climbed to ten percent of that casualty count in a single month.

Looking forward, if the most optimistic current projections hold, coronavirus will bring between thirty and seventy 9/11s to the United States, or two to six Vietnams.  At those heights, the sheer scale of the misery again turns particular memories (where I was when the towers fell, what it felt like to run my fingers along the wall) into abstractions.

And beyond such numbers, should the best case scenarios fail to pan out, we’ll find ourselves in territory at the limits of national mourning. It took 405,000 American lives to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  And should the US epidemic wholly overwhelms the still-patchwork effort to contain it, the only remaining national memory to measure our tragedy against will be America’s bloodiest conflict, the Civil War, in which an estimated 750,000 Americans lost their lives.

Back on the first of March, just one man lay dying of this awkwardly named new disease. Those who knew him could mourn him in his human singularity. Glimpsed now, through the lens of almost six thousand more dead, he is the unknown soldier in this viral campaign.

More than three 9/11s.

And counting.

Image: Pieter Breughel the Elder, The Triumph of Death, c. 1562

The Measure Of An Epidemic: New Coronavirus UnitsPost + Comments (83)

Everything Dies, Baby That’s A Fact

by Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix|  February 29, 202010:45 am| 135 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Bitter Despair is the New Black

I was raised by a guy who had a really hard life as a farm boy, dealt with a lot of death, and pretty much was never fazed by much during his career as a small town doctor. When he retired, his colleague, who was an incredibly talented physician, good friend, and fitness buff, said that whenever there was a crisis, everyone felt better when my old man showed up, because his indomitable confidence made them all think everything would be OK. Dad gave the eulogy for his younger friend after he died in his 60’s of a very malevolent form of cancer.

Two of my brothers had lymphoma in their mid-40s. One of them almost died on the operating table as they were inserting his port prior to treatment. The other had complications that required chest surgery and two weeks in a specialty hospital. Both were in perfect health before diagnosis, and, in each case, their lymphoma was diagnosed late because doctors seeing hoofprints were late to see the zebras. They are both fine today. My mom is currently fighting lung cancer even though she never smoked, was on no medicine, and was fit and flexible when she was diagnosed at 79.

Dad is still around and he was the voice we listened to when my brothers and mom got sick. We first got sad and angry about the diagnosis, then we listened to the experts, informed ourselves as best we could from reliable information sources, made our best treatment decisions, and moved the fuck on with the ugly work of dealing with cancer.

What we sure as hell didn’t do, by nature and by conscious decision, was panic. My Dad is pretty easy going with his kids, by my God I couldn’t imagine the anger and withering disapproval he would have had if any of us had panicked. Because everyone dies. And someone dies every moment of every day. Only blithering idiots think they can dodge death, or that there’s some justice in who the grim reaper chooses to hack into pieces. Panic wouldn’t save anyone. Panic would make us stupid, and we all needed to use our brains if my brothers and mom were going to live.

It’s with that perspective that I view the current virus panic. We can’t do anything about the cowards in charge (except work to vote them out), but we certainly can avoid being infected by panic. We can also plan for something good to come, and make sure that we hang every stupid, cowardly move they make firmly around their over-entitled, moron necks.

So, put your makeup on and fix your hair up pretty, because you’re alive today and odds are that you’ll be here tomorrow, no matter what any of the pants shitters in DC have to say.

Everything Dies, Baby That’s A FactPost + Comments (135)

Faster Faster Disaster

by Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix|  January 31, 20208:49 am| 164 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Bitter Despair is the New Black

Lamar Alexander’s rationale for the preordained conclusion that will probably be ratified today is that Trump’s behavior was “inappropriate” but didn’t rise to an impeachable offense. “Inappropriate” is what a high school teacher tells a student cussing in class. It’s what a manager tells an employee who wears jeans on a day that isn’t casual Friday. It’s not the word for the rampant criminal activity perpetrated in this White House.

We all know that the next time Republicans control the House, a Democratic President will be impeached, for something. And we know that if a Democrat wins the White House, he or she will be picked to death about minutiae like clothing, attitude and perceived slights. We know that having a Senate majority will mean that some of our agenda will get passed, but not all, because some of the same Democrats who appear poised to vote to acquit Trump have to appease Republicans.

And all this in a country with a clear majority wanting the Democrats to rule. As the X-rays clearly show, this was broken long ago — the vote to acquit will just make it clear to everyone: IOKIYAR is the law of the land.

Faster Faster DisasterPost + Comments (164)

Potential Book Club Material: “A Very Stable Genius”

by Anne Laurie|  January 16, 202011:16 pm| 103 Comments

This post is in: Books, Excellent Links, Grifters Gonna Grift, Impeachment Inquiry, Republican Venality, Trumpery, All Too Normal, Bitter Despair is the New Black, Lock Him Up...Lock Them All Up

Trump wanted to get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, ?@PhilipRucker? and ?@CarolLeonnig? report in their new book. “It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump said. https://t.co/BzXfUyGZiA

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) January 15, 2020

I’m kidding, of course — we know most of this crap already. But kudos to the authors on the timing of their release…

President Trump reveals himself as woefully uninformed about the basics of geography, incorrectly telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” He toys with awarding himself the Medal of Freedom.

And, according to a new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, Trump does not seem to grasp the fundamental history surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor…

“A Very Stable Genius” — a 417-page book named after Trump’s own declaration of his superior knowledge — is full of similarly vivid details from Trump’s tumultuous first three years as president, from his chaotic transition before taking office to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and final report…

The book by the two longtime Post reporters — who were part of the team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Trump and Russia — was obtained ahead of its scheduled release Tuesday.

Many of the key moments reported in the book are rife with foreign policy implications, portraying a novice commander in chief plowing through normal protocols and alarming many both inside the administration and in other governments.

Early in his administration, for instance, Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — so much so, the authors write, “that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates” to inquire about his pressing desire: “When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?” he asks…

In spring 2017, Trump also clashed with Tillerson when he told him he wanted his help getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that prevents U.S. firms and individuals from bribing foreign officials for business deals.

“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump says, according to the book. “We’re going to change that.”

The president, they go on to explain, was frustrated with the law “ostensibly because it restricted his industry buddies or his own company’s executives from paying off foreign governments in faraway lands.”

The book, the duo writes in an author’s note, is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with more than 200 sources, corroborated, when possible, by calendars, diary entries, internal memos and even private video recordings. (Trump himself had initially committed to an interview for the book, the authors write, but ultimately declined, amid an escalating war with the media).

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday…

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Potential Book Club Material: “A Very Stable Genius”Post + Comments (103)

How to Stop a War

by Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix|  January 3, 20206:07 pm| 87 Comments

This post is in: War, Bitter Despair is the New Black

Our Commander-in-Chief:

President Trump told reporters Friday that the United States had killed Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top military figures, in a bid to “stop a war.” The president, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, urged Iran not to retaliate.

“We did not take action to start a war,” he said.

So it goes something like this, see if I’m paying attention:

  1. Kill top general of the opposition forces.
  2. ?????
  3. War stopped. QED

Other thoughts in the same vein:

  • “I didn’t go running in traffic to get hit by a car, but to cross the street.”
  • “I didn’t have unprotected sex to get pregnant, but to have some fun.”

Open thread.

How to Stop a WarPost + Comments (87)

Late Night NATO Open Thread: They’re Not Laughing *With* Him, They’re Laughing *At* Him

by Anne Laurie|  December 4, 201912:45 am| 54 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Trumpery, All Too Normal, Bitter Despair is the New Black

.@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day. (Video: Host Pool) pic.twitter.com/dVgj48rpOP

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) December 3, 2019

Imagine the trash Putin and Erdoğan talk behind his back. https://t.co/moiBBYUss0

— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 4, 2019

Macron tricks Trump into supporting NATO using toddler reverse-psychology https://t.co/hMjba7NlJm pic.twitter.com/fNvy16H37s

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) December 3, 2019

I think we need to consider the possibility that Emmanuel Macron has finally figured out how to play Trump. https://t.co/KYKYfHhlDt pic.twitter.com/AUE0hArGTM

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) December 3, 2019

It’d be funnier, if not for the war crimes part…

Trump in London is babbling like the village idiot- body jerking, word finding, repetition, slurring.
"past presidents allowed China to steal the cookie cutter"
"France is having a bad season"
"Since I joined NATO"
"most 'pawarul' military"
"killed Al Baghdadi 3 wks ago" It was 5

— Tom Joseph (@TomJChicago) December 3, 2019

Trump on the Kurds: "We have taken the oil. I've taken the oil. We should have done it in other locations, frankly, where we were. I can name four of them right now, but we've taken the oil … our great soldiers are right around the oil where we've got the oil." pic.twitter.com/GS6uNGUkQV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2019

Late Night NATO Open Thread: They’re Not Laughing *With* Him, They’re Laughing *At* HimPost + Comments (54)

You hate to see it…

by Betty Cracker|  November 24, 20199:55 am| 195 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Assholes, Bitter Despair is the New Black, Decline and Fall, The Republican Crime Syndicate, WTF?

In several ways, this clip of former NSC official Fiona Hill being questioned by House GOP Counsel Stephen Castor is the perfect microcosm of our national political moment:

Castor opens by trying to get Hill to deny that she was upset with Bolton and “the way things were going.” Hill gives a forthright account of her anger at Sondland, owns up to being “a bit rude” to him and talks about how commonly women’s anger is misunderstood in professional situations.

Hill then throws the flaming bag of shit right back at Castor, noting that Sondland’s testimony convinced her she was angry at Sondland for the wrong reason. Sondland was following Trump’s orders on a “domestic political errand,” which put his actions at odds with those of Hill and the rest of the State Department’s Ukraine team, who were executing “national security foreign policy” at the moment its objectives diverged from Trump’s political goals.

It was a remarkable moment, but it won’t matter. As I’ve complained in this space before, having a leering misogynist like Trump in the White House is a daily insult to women, a constant reminder of our second-class citizenship that is made even more painful by the complicity of so many (mostly white) women who elevated that buffoon to the office. But it’s not just Trump.

It’s the brisk, no-nonsense, intelligent competence of Fiona Hill vs. the smirking and mugging of large check-writer Gordon Sondland. It’s the bravery of Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony contrasted with the angry public tantrum thrown by Brett Kavanaugh. It’s Nancy Pelosi’s resolve to follow the Constitution juxtaposed with Mitch McConnell’s bottomless cynicism.

And the worthy, competent, intelligent women might win the battle, but they lose the war because that’s the way the game is rigged. I’m pretty goddamned sick of it. That is all.

Open thread.

You hate to see it…Post + Comments (195)

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