Essentials

The earth stands
In the middle of nowhere

Suspended in suspension

The fragile tango with the moon

Keeping alive the breath

That utters scripture

Bread.

The vast universe

Extending beyond where light goes

Something out of nothing.

The span of time

But who is measuring

Time that stands still

And time that moves

God's artwork.

The beauty of delight

Of simple gestures of kindness

And love

That capture

The essence. 

Coronavirus News (255)

Trevor Noah: Trump Is Immune to Factual Information “You would think that somewhere along that journey Trump would pick up a tiny, tiny bit of knowledge. But, hey, maybe he’s immune to that, too,” the “Daily Show” host said of the president’s infection with the coronavirus. ...........  ‘Sick man leaves hospital to continue to get round-the-clock medical attention at home’ is not exactly a flattering story, but ‘Sick man kicks virus’s ass and can never get sick again’? Now that’s a good story.” — TREVOR NOAH .........  “What the hell kind of a thing is that to say? ‘Maybe I’m immune, I don’t know’? It sounds like the last thing a frat bro says right before he drinks the toilet water for 20 bucks.” — TREVOR NOAH ............ “It feels like that part of the movie where Trump was bitten by a werewolf and plays it off like it’s no big deal. He’s like, ‘Totally fine, never better. Sure, I howl at the moon and have a taste for humans, but mostly A-OK.’” — JIMMY FALLON ............ “Typhoid Donny made a Trumpumphant return to the White House last night, with a dramatic balcony scene that only an egomaniac on massive amounts of drugs would ever even think to stage.” — JIMMY KIMMEL ........... An infectious president on powerful steroids and experimental drugs walking around with a potentially deadly virus, making a big show of leaving the hospital, flying back to the White House at sunset, and just before Joe Biden’s town hall, taking his mask off in front of the cameras and visibly gasping for air, like he’s been guarding LeBron James all night.” — SETH MEYERS ............. “I haven’t been this confused by a masked man on a balcony since Michael Jackson dangled that baby off one.” — JIMMY KIMMEL ............   “Seriously, I’m not sure it was safe for him to climb 22 steps before Covid .............   “That’s the craziest thing he’s ever done on that balcony — and that’s the same place where he looked straight into an eclipse.” — JIMMY FALLON ............. “Trump wanted this to be a show of strength, but moments after taking off his mask, he was clearly struggling to breathe. Still, it’s a strong look, because nothing bad ever happens to people who are famous for their balconies: Your Mussolini, your Saddam, your Juliets.” — STEPHEN COLBERT .................. Yo, this wasn’t a photo op; it was a biological attack on the White House.” — TREVOR NOAH .............. “Once on the balcony, Kim Jong Don removed his mask. [as Trump] ‘I’m back from the hospital, and just to put any lingering doubts to rest, I’ve learned nothing. Kneel before me, you weak and withered, and inhale my precious droplets!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT ..............  “By the way, the only reason we could even tell that he was gasping for air was that the highly infectious president who is actively symptomatic with a potential deadly virus took his mask off once he got back to the White House. Wow, so the villain is unmasked at the end of the episode. The only thing missing was Scooby and the gang.” — SETH MEYERS 

The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble Each one is in a battleground state. Votes from people there will matter a lot — and offer Joe Biden several paths to victory. .......  Polls now show Joe Biden with a surprising opportunity to capture Sun Belt suburbs that have voted reliably Republican for decades. .......... Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas and Iowa. .......... Trump is in serious trouble. ..........  Philadelphia and Pittsburgh hog the spotlight, but Pennsylvania’s electoral ground zero might be its far northwest corner. ............ A February Mercyhurst University poll showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump 48 percent to 44 percent in Erie County, and that was before Covid-19 made headlines. ............ Everything is bigger in Texas — including the suburban backlash against Mr. Trump — and the political metamorphosis underway in Dallas’s white-collar northern suburbs is happening at a dizzying pace. ......... Despite Texas’s old Wild West stereotype, the state now has one of the most metropolitan and diverse electorates in the country — and Mr. Trump’s erosion in its sprawling suburbs explains Mr. Biden’s surprising opportunity. .......... Perhaps the most widely cited bellwether in the country, Vigo, which includes Terre Haute, is the only county in America that has voted for the winner of every presidential race since 1956. But it may lose that status in 2020: In 2016, it broke for Mr. Trump by a whopping 15 points, and it’s easy to see him carrying it again this fall, even if he loses the presidency.

Goldman Sachs: A Democratic sweep would mean faster economic recovery  polls "suggest a 'blue wave' in which Democrats gain unified control of Washington is becoming more likely" ............ Moody's Analytics found that Biden's economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump's. The economy would return to full employment in the second half of 2022, nearly two years earlier than under Trump's plan, Moody's said. 

Cuomo Imposes Tight Virus Rules on Areas Hit by Spikes Across State The plan was intended to curb the outbreak in areas, many with large populations of Orthodox Jews, that have had sharp increases in cases.

Covid-19 could be the start of a better era for women who work The pandemic has been tough on female workers but it presents a chance to fix long-ignored problems ........ He wanted to persuade married women (and, crucially, their husbands) that they could go to work without threatening the natural order of things. ............  Take Japan. Although known for its patriarchal society of “salarymen” and housewives, Japan’s female employment rate had been rising before the pandemic. But like the “white glove girls”, many Japanese women were not admitted into the heart of corporate Japan. The majority had “non-regular” contracts with less security and fewer benefits. These jobs were the first to be shed when the pandemic hit. Many mothers, especially in Japan where regular jobs are characterised by long hours and presenteeism, have had to trade pay and security for flexibility. .......... Yet the pandemic has also brought hope. Forced to experiment with remote working, Japanese companies from Fujitsu to Hitachi have realised workers can be just as productive, probably more so, without long hours in the office. Japanese parents, in particular, are likely to become less tolerant of employers who cling to the past. ........ “Old habits die hard, but I hope Covid will mark a watershed moment for Japan’s work culture, which is a far more insidious killer” ......... a redesign of traditional jobs — more trust, less presenteeism — is likely to benefit parents everywhere. ..........    the fragile attachment of American women to the labour market is the consequence of the country’s woeful caregiving infrastructure. “Just like we need roads to drive down to get to work or deliver our goods to market, we need a childcare and caregiving infrastructure that allows people to . . . go to work.” The US does not provide statutory paid parental leave to all employees, unlike almost every other country, while affordable childcare is in short supply ........... a majority of both Democratic and Republican voters now support the idea of higher congressional funding for childcare. Whoever wins next month’s US presidential election, improving childcare should be a political and economic no-brainer. ...... Women aren’t just working for “second car” money these days — the fate of the economy depends on them.

Donald Trump is risking a Covid election blowout If the race stays focused on the pandemic, polls suggest Joe Biden will win .........  It follows that Mr Trump must change the subject or take radical steps to make Americans trust his pandemic-management skills. He has instead chosen to do something solipsistic — tell Americans the pathogen can be defeated by sheer force of will. This is a rash mix. It is further depressing his poll ratings on coronavirus while making it harder for him to change the subject. Mr Trump’s decision to pull out of next week’s presidential debate after organisers said it would be held remotely because of Covid concerns only reinforces that. ..........  Joe Biden’s poll lead over Mr Trump has hit double digits in Florida where a lot of retirees live ............. His averaged overall national lead is now near double digits. Even if those margins were halved, Mr Trump would be facing a heavy defeat. ..........  So why is he pushing on a failing strategy? Much has been made of the fact that Mr Trump is taking a steroid, dexamethasone, which can cause wild mood swings. Doubtless, the drug can induce euphoria. But there is little to differentiate Mr Trump’s post-hospital and pre-hospital behaviour. He did not suddenly chance on the notion of issuing torrents of capitalised tweets after checking out of Walter Reed. Nor did the idea of publicly stripping off his mask come in the wake of his drug treatment. He has been taunting social distancers all year. The only seeming effect of Mr Trump’s treatment is that he became even more like himself. ............   America’s much-promised V-shaped recovery floundered on the failure to flatten the coronavirus curve. Mr Trump did not help matters this week when he pulled out of talks for another coronavirus relief bill. That dealt a heavy blow to the prospect of more relief for ordinary Americans before the election. ......  Mr Trump has thus built himself a maze. He wants Americans to be afraid of something that does not seem particularly lethal — the radical left — yet be unafraid of a disease that has so far claimed more than 200,000 American lives. It does not feel like a winning strategy.

Coronavirus News (254)

Coronavirus could kill more than 2 million people by the end of the year, researchers say It’s accelerating because the virus is so infectious and control measures aren’t coordinated and systematic, according to health expert Northern hemisphere could see a spike in cases as it moves into winter and flu season

The World's Fastest Family

Single Parents Finding Love: Over Zoom, of Course Because dating with kids wasn’t tricky enough before the pandemic.  

Covid-19 could be the start of a better era for women who work, writes Sarah O'Connor. The pandemic presents a chance to fix long-ignored problems https://t.co/kZA8lI3tG8

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 6, 2020

Piketty’s “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages Over the two-plus centuries for which good records exist, the only major decline in capital’s economic share and in economic inequality was the result of World Wars I and II, which destroyed lots of capital and brought much higher taxes in the U.S. and Europe. This period of capital destruction was followed by a spectacular run of economic growth. ........ Over the two-plus centuries for which good records exist, the only major decline in capital’s economic share and in economic inequality was the result of World Wars I and II, which destroyed lots of capital and brought much higher taxes in the U.S. and Europe. This period of capital destruction was followed by a spectacular run of economic growth. ........... Piketty’s main worry seems to be that growing wealth in Europe will bring a return to 19th century circumstances in which most affluent people get that way through inheritance. ........... That’s why he spends so much time describing characters from the novels of Honoré de Balzac and Jane Austen who see inheriting money or marrying into it as the only path to a comfortable life. .............  he does offer evidence for his contention that the bigger the fortune, the faster it will grow in the future: the performance of university endowments in the U.S., where the largest endowments have earned dramatically higher percentage returns than the rest. ........... Since the 1970s, though, the U.S. has seen a sharp and unparalleled increase in the percentage of income going to the top 1% and especially 0.1%. ............ managers and financial professionals making up 60% of the top 0.1% of the income distribution in the U.S., and proposes that their skyrocketing pay is mainly the product of sharp declines in top marginal tax rates that made it worth managers’ while to bargain harder for raises. ............  this huge rise in relative income inequality has brought no discernible economic benefit ......... Per-capita economic growth has been almost identical in the U.S. and Western Europe since 1980, and because of the skew towards the top here, U.S. median income has actually lost ground relative to other nations. ............ Piketty proposes a progressive global wealth tax — at one point he suggests that it could start at 0.1% a year for small nest eggs and rise to 2% for fortunes of above 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) — as the best response to the current dynamics of inequality. .......  central banks are redistributing wealth all the time, just not in a transparent, democratic manner .......... No longer will one be able to simply assert that rising inequality is a necessary byproduct of prosperity, or that capital deserves protected status because it brings growth.

Coronavirus News (253)

Trump Returns to ‘The Infest Wing’ “When she heard he was coming home, Melania immediately checked herself into Walter Reed,” Jimmy Fallon joked on Monday. ...........  “And now at least 30 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for Covid-19. You realize that means there’s been more infections at the White House over the last day than in New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia combined. The White House Rose Garden is like the wet market of America right now.” — TREVOR NOAH .........   “Everyone from Trump’s campaign manager to Trump’s press secretary to Trump’s friends have been infected with coronavirus now. It’s almost like the writers of 2020 didn’t know how to wrap the story up so they were just like, ‘Uh, then they all get coronavirus, the end.’” — TREVOR NOAH ............ “Now look, I know some people are saying this was karma catching up to Trump, but guys, a massive outbreak at the White House is not karma, it’s consequences, all right? It’s not karma to get hit by lightning when you’re standing on the roof of a skyscraper holding a metal rod while there’s lightning. The universe didn’t do that [expletive] to you — you did that [expletive] to yourself.” — TREVOR NOAH ............. “Now, while the doctors were presenting a rosy picture, they also revealed that Trump has been put on two drugs: remdesivir and dexamethasone. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a good sign when you get prescribed the high score in a Scrabble game.” — STEPHEN COLBERT 

Fareed Zakaria Looks at Life After the Pandemic  Not only has science learned a few things. So have governments, which went for penny-pinching and deflation after the Crash of 1929, but now pour out trillions. ............. Zakaria rightly celebrates “our resilient world.” States actually “gain strength through chaos and crises.” ........... The United States has proved neither competent nor cohesive. It is an archipelago of some 2,600 federal, state and local authorities charged with health policy. ..............  America, Zakaria says, must learn “not big or small, but good government.” ......... Zakaria lays out the road from the pandemic to the transcendence of America the Dysfunctional. The to-do list is long. Upward mobility is down, inequality is up. The universities of the United States lead the global pack, but a B.A. at one of those top schools comes with a price tag upward of a quarter-million dollars. The country boasts the best medical establishment, but health care for the masses might just as well dwell on the moon. ............  Like Sweden long ago, Denmark is the new Promised Land, even when compared with the rest of Europe. Striking a wondrous balance between efficiency, market economics and equality, those great Danes embody an inspiring model; alas, it is hard to transfer. A small and homogeneous country on the edge of world politics, Denmark is the very opposite of the United States. Maybe its people should occupy America for a couple of generations to reform 330 million über-diverse citizens. ............   The world’s troubles ... are rooted in ultramodernity: globalization, automation, alienation, mass migration, the lure and decay of the world’s sprawling metropolises. These are the stuff of misery — and the fare of cultural critics since the dawn of the industrial age. ........  Nor does he spare his own liberal class, the “meritocracy” of the best educated and better off, which he fingers ever so gently as deepening the divide between urban and rural, elites and “deplorables.” ................ “This ugly pandemic has … opened up a path to a new world.” .........  “many rich societies” do not honor “a social contract that benefits everyone.” So, the neoliberalism of decades past must yield to “radical reforms.” Governments “will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments. … Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the … wealthy in question.” Now is the time for “basic income and wealth taxes.”  ....... Covid-19 is merely accelerating the mental turn engendered by the 2008 financial crisis. We are all social democrats now. ....... Government in the West is back with industrial policy and trillions in cash. It is not a radical, but a consensual project. ....... After half a lifetime of retraction from the economy, big government is back — and looks as if it will stay. ......... May we all be as smart as the Danes. They have marvelously combined welfarism and individual responsibility. But they have not invented the PC, MRT, iPhone or Tesla, not to speak of Post-its and the microwave popcorn bag. 

Vilified Early Over Lax Virus Strategy, Sweden Seems to Have Scourge Controlled After having weathered high death rates when it resisted a lockdown in the spring, Sweden now has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Whether that is an aberration remains to be seen. ......... “Our work lives should not be reduced to just the screen in front of us,” he said. “Ultimately, we are social animals.” ........... Almost alone in the Western world, the Swedes refused to impose a coronavirus lockdown last spring, as the country’s leading health officials argued that limited restrictions were sufficient and would better protect against economic collapse. ....................  The per capita rate is far lower than nearby Denmark or the Netherlands (if higher than the negligible rates in Norway and Finland). ........... Its borders stayed open, as did bars, restaurants and schools. Hairdressers, yoga studios, gyms and even some cinemas remained open, as did public transportation and parks. ...........  “The Swedes went into self-lockdown,” he said. “They trusted in their people to self-apply social distancing measures without punishing them.” .......... distancing provided overall better protection than masks ....... Sweden did not set out to achieve “herd immunity” ........... “We changed behavior. I don’t see anybody shaking hands, for example” 

Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract Radical reforms are required to forge a society that will work for all ............ to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone. ....... Despite inspirational calls for national mobilisation, we are not really all in this together. .......... Overnight millions of jobs and livelihoods have been lost in hospitality, leisure and related sectors, while better paid knowledge workers often face only the nuisance of working from home. .......... vast monetary loosening by central banks will help the asset-rich. Behind it all, underfunded public services are creaking under the burden of applying crisis policies. ......... every society must demonstrate how it will offer restitution to those who bear the heaviest burden of national efforts. .............    Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix ..........  rightly compared to the sort of wartime economy western countries have not experienced for seven decades ....... Beyond the public health war, true leaders will mobilise now to win the peace.

Coronavirus Is Very Different From the Spanish Flu of 1918. Here’s How. The fear is similar, but the medical reality is not. ........... The 1918 flu pandemic, thought to be the deadliest in human history, killed at least 50 million people worldwide (the equivalent of 200 million today), with half a million of those in the United States. ............. a majority of those killed by the disease were in the prime of life — often in their 20s, 30s and 40s .......... “Nurses often walked into scenes resembling those of the plague years of the fourteenth century,” wrote the historian Alfred W. Crosby in “America’s Forgotten Pandemic.” “One nurse found a husband dead in the same room where his wife lay with newly born twins. It had been twenty-four hours since the death and the births, and the wife had had no food but an apple which happened to lie within reach.” ...............  With a case fatality rate of at least 2.5 percent, the 1918 flu was far more deadly than ordinary flu, and it was so infectious that it spread widely, which meant the number of deaths soared. ............ In Albuquerque, where schools and theaters were closed, a local newspaper wrote, “the ghost of fear walked everywhere.” 

A new stimulus deal is still possible.  

Pompeo asks ‘Quad’ allies to stand against China’s ‘corruption, coercion’ Speaking with his Japanese, Indian and Australian counterparts in Tokyo, Mike Pompeo said cooperation against Beijing now more critical than ever The US, Australia and India are all at loggerheads with Beijing, while Japan walks a tightrope trying to preserve ties

Coronavirus News (252)

GOP U.S. Senate candidate in Delaware thanks Proud Boys for providing free security at the rally

Why Silicon Valley CEOs are such raging psychopaths  The patron saint of Big Tech douches, the one who inspired an entire generation of start-up entrepreneurs to put their worst face forward, was late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. He disliked wearing shoes (or showering), preferred parking in handicapped parking spots and once motivated employees by calling them “f–king d–kless assholes.” ......... “His legacy has cultivated an indelible association between being a jerk and a genius,” writes Gavet. “Which has ballooned to the point where many people believe that a founder-CEO, in particular, actually has to be a jerk to be a genius.” ........ She calls it the Steve Jobs Syndrome, and she’s witnessed both powerful and up-and-coming tech exes believing in the myth like it’s doctrine. ...........  Former WeWork CEO Neumann was celebrated in the media for his audacious leadership style — from barefoot strolls through Manhattan to offering his employees tequila shots and Run DMC concerts in the office. ............... Not only is Musk still Tesla’s CEO, but his net worth also jumped this summer to $103 billion, up from $22.4 billion last year, making him the third-richest person in the world. ............ companies need to take a more empathetic approach. “They need to hire differently, promote differently, reward differently,” she says. “I’m an optimist, but I’m also a capitalist. I believe there are ways to make a company more empathetic, more reasonable, a force of good in the world. And I believe in the long run, that would actually be beneficial for the businesses.” ........... “Some of the CEOs I’m close to — and I still think they are, to a large extent, psychopaths — they’re struggling,” says Gavet. “They tell me, ‘It feels like I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.’ They get criticized for being too aggressive, but when they try to be empathetic, they’re criticized for being too soft.” The trend of psychopathy at the top of Big Tech won’t be “disrupted,” Gavet says, until we stop expecting the next Steve Jobs to be as abrasive and psychotic as, well … Steve Jobs.

बिपी, हर्क गुरुङ र गाउँमुखी विकासको मोडेल 

Crisis Group Turns Focus to Risk of Electoral Violence in the U.S. 

For the Secret Service, a New Question: Who Will Protect Them From Trump? Central to the job is a willingness to say yes to the president no matter what he asks. Now, that means subjecting an agent’s health to the whims of a contagious president.

As Trump Seeks to Project Strength, Doctors Disclose Alarming Episodes The president made a surprise outing from his hospital bed in an effort to show his improvement, but the murky and shifting narrative of his illness was rewritten again with grim new details. ............ his doctors once again rewrote the official narrative of his illness by acknowledging two alarming episodes they had previously not disclosed. ........ The doctors said that Mr. Trump’s blood oxygen level dropped twice in the two days after he was diagnosed with the coronavirus, requiring medical intervention, and that he had been put on steroids, suggesting his condition might be more serious than initially described. ........... officials acknowledged providing rosy assessments to satisfy their prickly patient. ........ his seeming energy may have reflected the fact that he was given the steroid dexamethasone ............ Others questioned the president’s statement in his video that he had met soldiers while at Walter Reed. ......... “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” Dr. James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, wrote on Twitter. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.” ............  the trip raised the alarming question of whether the president was directing his doctors. .......... it violated standards of care and would not be an option open to any other patient. “When I first saw this, I thought, maybe he was being transported to another hospital.” ...............  Mr. Trump was put on supplemental oxygen during the Friday spell over the president’s strenuous objections .......... During his briefing on Sunday, Dr. Conley acknowledged that he had provided a rosy version of events to please his notoriously sensitive patient. ............. In addition to the steroids, Mr. Trump has received an experimental antibody cocktail and is in the midst of a five-day course of remdesivir, an antiviral drug. The White House has a medical unit capable of responding to a president’s health troubles but not with the sophisticated equipment available at Walter Reed. .................   Mr. Trump, who historically hates hospitals and anything related to illness, has been hankering to get released ..........   some aides expressed fear that he would pressure Dr. Conley into releasing him by claiming to feel better than he actually does .......... a premature return could lead to a second trip to the hospital if his condition worsens. ........ The president has also been watching lots of television, even more than usual, and has been exasperated by coverage of Saturday’s calamitous handling of his medical information by Dr. Conley and Mr. Meadows, as well as speculation about whether he would transfer powers to Vice President Mike Pence. ......... He was also angry that no one was on television defending him, as he often is when he cannot inject his own views into news media coverage ............  In addition to Mr. Trump, a number of others who work or visit the building regularly have tested positive, including Melania Trump; Hope Hicks, a senior adviser to the president; Nicholas Luna, the director of Oval Office operations; Bill Stepien, the campaign manager; Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; and Kellyanne Conway, the president’s former counselor. ................  a follow-up reception inside the White House on Sept. 26 for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the event seen as a likely source of the outbreak. 

2020 Nobel Prize Winners: Full List

Coronavirus News (251)

Donald Trump’s narcissism betrays a fragile ego lashing out in rage The popular notion that narcissists are endowed with an extraordinary reservoir of confidence, self-importance and unconditional self-regard is mistaken Narcissists like Trump try to mask their shortcomings and constantly attack others to protect their own fragile egos from being exposed and collapsing ...........  The 90-plus-minute barrage of personal attacks, insults, interruptions and incoherence was often credited to Trump’s lack of integrity, intelligence and decorum. ............ many psychiatrists and mental health professionals in the United States are warning about the dangers of Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). ........ What is a narcissist? A common understanding is someone who is grandiose, entitled and lacks empathy. ....... Those who work with NPD in a clinical setting are familiar with a psychological reality that is in stark contrast to the common myth. The psychological structure responsible for NPD is actually a very fragile ego. Because it is too painful to get in touch with such fragility, the narcissist goes to extreme lengths to banish any inkling of their own imperfections. ........... “Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my grandfather started that he is strong, smart and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth – that he is none of those things – is too terrifying for him to contemplate.” ......... material we don’t want to deal with in waking life shows up in our dreams in disguised forms. ............ Donald Trump, who “began to believe his own hype, even as he paradoxically suspected on a very deep level that nobody else did”. ............. This is the plague of narcissism. Narcissists are persecuted by a fragile, impoverished ego; the only recourse to avoid the painful realisation of their fragility is to continuously inflate the ego as a countermeasure to keep their fragile ego from collapsing. When the mirror on the wall sends back a view that challenges the evil queen’s inflated sense of her prettiness, she responds with a murderous rage. This is not an uncommon response from a narcissist – any threat to their sense of superiority will be met with rage. .................  The president said so himself on Twitter: “When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!” ........... a psychological warfare that has no place for peace because one has to keep up the attacks on others to protect one’s fragile ego from being exposed and collapsing.

A North Carolina college student apparently died of rare neurological complications from the virus, his family says. A 19-year-old student at Appalachian State University — a basketball player “in tremendous shape,” according to his family — died Monday night, apparently of neurological complications related to Covid-19, his family and the university said............  New cases in Sweden, which became a lightning rod over its lax pandemic response early on, remain surprisingly low. ............. Almost alone in the Western world, Sweden refused to impose a coronavirus lockdown last spring, as the country’s leading health officials argued that limited restrictions were sufficient and would better protect against economic collapse. ........ The per capita rate is far lower than nearby Denmark or the Netherlands (if higher than the negligible rates in Norway and Finland). Sweden is also doing far better, for the moment, than Spain, with 10,000 cases a day, and France, with 12,000. ....... “Today, all of the European countries are more or less following the Swedish model, combined with the testing, tracing and quarantine procedures the Germans have introduced, but none will admit it”

‘The Social Dilemma’ Will Freak You Out—But There’s More to the Story    Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire. The common denominator of all these phenomena is that they’re fueled in part by our seemingly innocuous participation in digital social networking. But how can simple acts like sharing photos and articles, reading the news, and connecting with friends have such destructive consequences? ............... the way social media gets people “hooked” by exploiting the brain’s dopamine response and using machine learning algorithms to serve up the customized content most likely to keep each person scrolling/watching/clicking. ........  “Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded,” says Jeff Siebert, a former exec at Twitter. The intelligence gleaned from those actions is then used in conjunction with our own psychological weaknesses to get us to watch more videos, share more content, see more ads, and continue driving Big Tech’s money-making engine. .............  For the first few years of social media’s existence, we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now it’s on a nosedive to the other end of the spectrum—we’re condemning it and focusing on its ills and unintended consequences. The next phase is to find some kind of balance, most likely through adjustments in design and, possibly, regulation. .......... The issue with social media is that it’s going to be a lot trickier to fix than, say, adding seatbelts and air bags to cars. The sheer size and reach of these tools, and the way in which they overlap with issues of freedom of speech and privacy—not to mention how they’ve changed the way humans interact—means it will likely take a lot of trial and error to come out with tools that feel good for us to use without being addicting, give us only true, unbiased information in a way that’s engaging without preying on our emotions, and allow us to share content and experiences while preventing misinformation and hate speech. ................ “While we’ve all been looking out for the moment when AI would overwhelm human strengths—when would we get the Singularity, when would AI take our jobs, when would it be smarter than humans—we missed this much much earlier point when technology didn’t overwhelm human strengths, but it undermined human weaknesses.”

How the Pandemic Is Affecting Working Mothers 

From ‘brain fog’ to heart damage, COVID-19’s lingering problems alarm scientists Life for the 38-year-old is a pale shadow of what it was before 17 March, the day she first experienced symptoms of the novel coronavirus. ............ she struggles to think clearly and battles joint and muscle pain. “I used to go to the gym three times a week,” Akrami says. Now, “My physical activity is bed to couch, maybe couch to kitchen.” ...........  “Everybody talks about a binary situation, you either get it mild and recover quickly, or you get really sick and wind up in the ICU,” says Akrami, who falls into neither category. Thousands echo her story in online COVID-19 support groups. ............  The list of lingering maladies from COVID-19 is longer and more varied than most doctors could have imagined. Ongoing problems include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. ..........  One group in Italy found that 87% of a patient cohort hospitalized for acute COVID-19 was still struggling 2 months later. ........... 10% to 15% of people—including some “mild” cases—don’t quickly recover. .............  Distinct features of the virus, including its propensity to cause widespread inflammation and blood clotting, could play a role in the assortment of concerns now surfacing. “We’re seeing a really complex group of ongoing symptoms” ................ Three months later, the man with the mild case “falls asleep all day long and cannot work” ................ Like a key fitting neatly into a lock, SARS-CoV-2 uses a spike protein on its surface to latch onto cells’ ACE2 receptors. The lungs, heart, gut, kidneys, blood vessels, and nervous system, among other tissues, carry ACE2 on their cells’ surfaces—and thus, are vulnerable to COVID-19. The virus can also induce a dramatic inflammatory reaction, including in the brain. Often, “The danger comes when the body responds out of proportion to the infection” ............. “What we’re experiencing is an epidemic of severe illness,” he says. “So therefore, there is an epidemic” of chronic illness that follows it. .............   One study of health care workers with SARS in 2003 found that those with lung lesions 1 year after infection still had them after 15 years. ............... The virus ravages the heart, for example, in multiple ways. Direct invasion of heart cells can damage or destroy them. Massive inflammation can affect cardiac function. The virus can blunt the function of ACE2 receptors, which normally help protect heart cells and degrade angiotensin II, a hormone that increases blood pressure. Stress on the body from fighting the virus can prompt release of adrenaline and epinephrine, which can also “have a deleterious effect on the heart” .............  78 of 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had cardiac abnormalities when their heart was imaged on average 10 weeks later, most often inflammation in heart muscle. Many of the participants in that study were previously healthy, and some even caught the virus while on ski trips ............ previously healthy people are not exempt from the virus’ long-term effects on the lungs ..............  After some severe viral infections, there are “those people who still don’t feel quite right afterward, but have normal brain scans” ............ Collectively, these “long-haulers” describe dozens of symptoms, including many that could have multiple causes, such as fatigue, joint pain, and fever. “It’s time to give some voice to this huge population of patients” .............. “You might have fibrosis in the lungs, and that will make you feel fatigued; you might have impaired heart function, and that will make you feel fatigued.” ........ The message many researchers want to impart: Don’t underestimate the force of this virus. 

Coronavirus News (250)

 

Jacindarella A fairy-tale election result beckons for New Zealand’s prime minister But the more popular she gets, the less transforming Jacinda Ardern becomes  ...........  She closed their borders to foreigners and rallied a “team of 5m” (ie, everyone in the country) to support one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. As a result, New Zealand has seen only 25 deaths from covid-19. ........... All this puts the prime minister on track for a big victory in an election on October 17th. The latest polls suggest that Labour may win 47% of the vote, which would give it 59 seats in the unicameral parliament. It needs 61 seats in the 120-seat chamber for an outright majority—a feat never achieved since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996. ............ before the pandemic, Ms Ardern was on track to lose the election. She came into office with lofty plans to “build a fairer, better New Zealand” by reducing child poverty, ending homelessness and erecting 100,000 cheap houses—none of which she has managed to do. .......... Ms Ardern positioned herself as a transforming leader. But to win enough seats to bring about sweeping change, she must secure votes from centrists who are wary of grandiose ideas. The more successful she becomes, the less radical she is likely to be. 

ELON MUSK: I REFUSE TO GET A COVID VACCINE  But it’s undeniably been a weird turn for the scientifically-minded entrepreneur, who’s spread misleading information about the virus and infamously tweeted in early March that he predicted there to be “close to zero new cases” by the “end of April.” He also opined that “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” ......... To Musk, it seems as though the pandemic is essentially just nature taking its course. When Swisher pushed him, telling him that “this storm is coming again,” Musk retorted with a blunt “everybody dies.”  

CHINA PLANS TO LAUNCH AN ANTITRUST PROBE INTO GOOGLE  In an echo of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the Chinese app TikTok, the Chinese government just took aim at Google — preparing to launch an antitrust probe into the tech giant over alleged monopolistic behavior. ........... The probe itself was launched at the request of the Chinese tech corporation Huawei .......... Google could face a similar fate as it did in 2018, back when the European Union fined it over $5.1 billion for stifling Android’s competitors. 

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WARNS OF “ZOMBIE STORMS”  the rare weather phenomenon occurs when strong tropical climates cause storms to come back from the dead. .......... That’s essentially what happened to Hurricane Paulette. The storm landed in Bermuda weeks ago as a Category 1 storm, intensified to a Category 2, and then lost speed. Then last week, Paulette joined the living dead by strengthening into a tropical storm once more, according to the National Hurricane Center. She made yet another reappearance about 300 miles off the Azores islands.  

This Tiny Electric Car Is Selling Like Hot Cakes in China  The no-frills model of the Hong Guang goes for 28,800 yuan (about $4,200 at current exchange rates). That’s less than a tenth of the cost of a Tesla Model 3 (291,800 yuan). ......... GM markets the car as “small on the outside, big on the inside.” It’s 9.5 feet long by 4.9 feet wide, and 5.3 feet tall. ..........  Its max speed is 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour), which isn’t quite fast enough for long trips on highways, but works great for moving around a city and its environs. Drivers can go about 105 miles on a single charge, and can monitor and control the car’s battery functions on a smartphone app.  

COVID VACCINES CAN HAVE SOME NASTY SIDE EFFECTS — BUT ONLY FOR A DAY BEATS DYING, THOUGH.  ..........  The entire world is waiting with bated breath for an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine. ........... take the day off after receiving a second dose. Plenty of other participants only experienced mild symptoms .............   Experts also worry that young people simply will take their chances with the virus rather than experience the side effects of a vaccine — which, of course, leaves them at risk of passing it along to more vulnerable populations.