Afternoon Tea 12.8.2020 - Opportunity Lost

At this point, who hasn't had 'rona in the Trump White House?

December 08, 2020

The White House passed on buying Pfizer vaccine doses when it had the chance, herd Immunity should probably be put to rest, Tulum might have become a superspreader site for Burners, and Jenna Ellis got that ‘rona. It’s Tuesday, December 8th 2020, and this is the Tea.

Armed Mexicans Were Smuggled In to Guard Border Wall, Whistle-Blowers Say (NY Times) From the Wiki: “Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves by attributing them to others.” 

Trump administration officials passed when Pfizer offered months ago to sell the US more vaccine doses (NY Times) & Trump administration refused offer to buy millions more Pfizer vaccine doses (The Guardian) If you could outline a Bond-villain tier plan, designed to maximize delivering economic & biological misery, that was actually more effective than what this administration has done, I will buy you a Coca Cola.

Scoop: West Wing fears COVID spread after Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis attends WH party (Axios) While I had gotten used to Trump’s loyalty tests, but I never expected “get COVID-19 and carelessly spread it” to become one.

Can We Finally Stop Talking About “Natural” COVID-19 Herd Immunity? (Slate) If anyone mentions Sweden, herd immunity, or some kind of pack culling, just ask them to list the 1mill+ people they know who they’re cool with dying. After all of their friends and family of course. Also Scott Atlas should be forced to eat delivery food for the rest of his life, given his willful & needless amplification of this crisis.

Rebekah Jones’ home searched, tech seized after Health Department hack (Florida Politics) Remember that data scientist who had been providing non-fucked with data to FL citizens, who was then fired by the governor? They SWAT’d her house. Took all her tech, and are now trying to tie her to some “hack” that happened a month ago. Utter humiliation trying to speak truth to power. But she’s getting a new computer. And if you’re not sure about how messed up Gov. DeSantis and his actions this year have been, this infuriatingly comprehensive piece by the South Florida Sun Sentinel will unpack his Cornucopia of Failure & Lies.

Tulum’s Burning Man Knockoff Became a COVID Superspreader Event (Daily Beast) & Sin City: New York nightlife never stopped. It just moved underground (The Cut) Forcing service workers to clean up after you at a festival or a bar party right now? I cannot ignore your willingness to put people who aren’t you & your friends at risk.

The cost of child care was already astronomical. In the pandemic, it’s ‘terrifying.’ (TheLily) When I got my first job at a website, a few senior employees were talking about their monthly day care bills while we were standing on line for lunch in midtown. I worked out how much of my monthly salary was allocated just to childcare in their universe, and gave myself a case of the Sads for the rest of the day. It’s so much worse now:

The United States has been an outlier on child care long before the coronavirus, Collins said, with price tags far exceeding those in other high-income countries. The average cost of child care for a child under 4 is $9,589 per year, according to New America’s Care Report...It’s much more expensive in big cities: In Washington, D.C., the average cost of care for an infant is more than $24,000.

Rising child care costs are particularly “terrifying” for U.S. families, Collins said, because child care already accounts for an enormous part of their budget, often second only to a family’s rent or mortgage. It’s different in other industrialized countries, she said, where child care is heavily subsidized. In Sweden, for example, child-care costs account for no more than 3 percent of a family’s income, and are capped at $1,800 per child, per year.

The Super-Scary Theory of the 21st Century (Noahpinion) The writer, the person who tweeted this, and I, all agree that we don’t entirely agree with the idea/premise being proposed here, but it’s important enough to understand. Technology used to be used by Great Powers to destroy their enemies and take their stuff. Social Networks might signal a shift to governments that it’s time to use their newfound tools to stamp out rebellion, or stoke rebellion in the borders of their enemies using misinformation.

Indian farmers vow to intensify protests after talks fail again (Al-Jazeera) Remember that general strike involving a quarter billion people? Another one might be coming.

A high school in Texas opened a grocery store for struggling families where good deeds are accepted as payment (CNN) I’m happy these kids can help their families in Sanger, Texas. The fact that this is needed at all makes me deeply sad for our future.

Small Business of the Tea: After a year of PT & chiropractic that never worked, I finally got over my apprehension and met Dr. Stephanie Raine Lee, DACM, L.Ac., who is, and I don’t mean to overstate this, responsible for rebuilding my shoulder and wrists. Her deep understanding of Chinese Medicine gets me acupuncture, massage, and other techniques when needed, not when asked about. in a perfect world, I would see her monthly to handle some residual pain and health issues I deal with. Reach out, you’ll thank me. Middle Village Acupuncture has made me a believer.

Song of the Tea: Run the Jewels, Cyberpunk 2077, direction by Mike Diva, one of my favorite hyper-realist visual producers. What’s not to like?! Cyberpunk drops in 2 days, and yes I do know a non-zero number of people who have already taken off of work.

Why do we need to add AR & VR to dystopian future? Because if you review any of the classic bropunk novels of the 70s & 80s, we’re kind of already there.

The future is going to be impossibly different. Anyone who says otherwise, is selling something.

Yours,T