Pandemic favors these companies He Won’t Concede, but He’ll Pack His Bags All evidence suggests that the president would run from the responsibility of overseeing the violent fracture of America. ......... The presidency is a burden, he said, and Trump is “incredibly lazy” and unsuited to physically and cognitively demanding work. .......... Not only has Trump not resigned—he has signaled that he’s willing to plunge America into chaos in an effort to remain in the White House. .......... we should remember that Trump had a vision of the presidency that began with extreme laziness, and that the end of his presidency could go roughly the same way. .......... Trump asked Kasich to be his running mate and, in the event of a Trump victory, to be “in charge of domestic and foreign policy.” What, Kasich’s team asked, would Trump be in charge of? The answer, delivered seriously: “Making America great again.” This is not the offer of a man fanatically devoted to the collection of power. It is the offer of a man too lazy to reach for the remote. ....... Trump thought that the presidency is like many large organizations: capable of running itself, with the president a public figurehead, no more necessary to the United States’ daily operation than the guy who plays Ronald McDonald is to the McDonald’s corporation. The deep state—a permanent bureaucracy that runs things in its own interests, irrespective of who is president—was not his villain. It was his fantasy. ........... the ridiculous absentee governing, especially in Trump’s first year. It turns out you can refuse to make hard decisions, and that is exactly what Trump did ......... an executive branch swiss-cheesed with vacant positions, run in practice by appointees with wildly diverse levels of competence who botch things while preserving the president’s ability to watch copious amounts of cable news. ...... The president who sleeps away a year in office does not awake to find his ship on course for safe harbor. He finds it run aground and ripped apart, leaking its contents all over the country like the Exxon Valdez. The second was impeachment, the Russia investigation, and other accusations of criminality against Trump and his associates. Being much poorer than he claimed to be, then hiring cut-rate criminals to run his affairs, made honorable departure from office ahead of schedule—and without permanent taint—impossible. ......... staying in office is the surest way to evade investigation, prosecution, and conviction. ......... just as there was an indolent way into the presidency, there is an indolent way out ......... As for the prospect of civil war: Trump is a coward, and all evidence suggests that he would run from the responsibility ....... A civil war sounds like a lot of work. ........... The easiest path is also the most lucrative. Get on Marine One, protesting all the way, and spend the rest of your days fleecing the 40 percent of Americans who still think you are the Messiah, and who will watch you on cable news, spend their money on whatever hypoallergenic pillow you endorse, and come to see you whenever you visit their town. ............. That seems to be what Trump is preparing now: insurance against a loss, so he can skate past criminal charges and live out the playboy post-presidency he has longed for since taking office.
Medieval Europeans didn’t understand how the plague spread. Their response wasn’t so different from ours now. When the new disease first arrived, little was clear beyond the fact that it killed with terrifying speed. Near-certain death trailed the first symptoms by four days or less. The doctors were helpless. This city was soon overwhelmed with corpses. Workers in church yards dug pits down to the water table, layering bodies and dirt, more bodies and dirt. ........... Seven centuries later, the plague in Europe stands as an example of a pandemic at its worst — .............. in both cases, the first instinct was to close borders to try to keep the disease at bay. When that didn’t work, officials called for strict rules — but only some people paid attention. All the while, there was a proliferation of conspiracy theories. Many tried to blame the disease on outsiders or minorities — in medieval Europe, often Jews. ............. “Much has changed since the 1340s ... but not human nature.” ............. daring dinner parties in which a host would gather 10 friends, with plans to reconvene again the next night. At the next dinner, Stefani said, sometimes “two or three were missing.” ........... many faced their last moments cut off from everybody else ........... People, after the onset of symptoms, were a mortal danger to those around them. So in some cases, family members abandoned sick loved ones, even children. Their deaths were noticed only when neighbors smelled the rotting corpses. ........... In 1348, she said, the city was in its own state of near-lockdown. The inns were closed. .......... People were panicked. It was unclear how the disease spread — but there was no doubt that proximity to others was a risk. Animals — oxen, dogs, pigs — were dying, as well. ............. They prayed and disavowed sin. They obsessed about the air and used scents and fires to ward off perceived deadly vapors. They were mostly guessing; scientists wouldn’t know what actually caused the plague — how the bacteria was spread by rats and fleas — until 500 years later. .................. At a time when people were trying to avoid the disease with trial-and-error strategies, only one thing seemed to work: If the plague arrived in your city, drop everything, flee the crowds and take refuge in the countryside. ............... All through the coronavirus pandemic, there have been accounts of people taking their own countryside flights to safety — New Yorkers decamping to the Hamptons, British urbanites seeking out holiday cottages. .................. But Cerrina Feroni said his ex-wife had already heard all of his stories many times over, and he had likewise heard all of hers. So instead, during pandemic lockdown in Fiesole, they watched Netflix.
Kamala Harris and the ‘Double Bind’ of Racism and Sexism Reactions to her debate performance show not only the bias that women and people of color face, but the fact that for women of color, that bias is more than the sum of its parts. ............ and a top Google search around that time was whether she was born in the United States. ........... unleashed a steady drip of racism and sexism, underscoring not only the double standards women and people of color face, but what happens when multiple identities meet: a Black woman, an Indian-American woman, a woman whose parents were immigrants. ......... One of the oldest racist tropes is that of the “angry Black woman.” ........ “Angry,” “mean,” “aggressive,” “disrespectful”: All of these words, which Mr. Trump has used to describe Ms. Harris, play to this stereotype, which was also used against Michelle Obama. False suggestions that Ms. Harris is scheming to run the country in Mr. Biden’s stead play to it, too. ............... a tightrope: Stereotypically feminine behavior can lead voters to see women running for office as more likable but less of a leader, while stereotypically masculine behavior can make voters see them as more of a leader but less likable. ............. “the classic double bind” ........... “Women can either be seen as leaders or they can be seen as feminine, and the two don’t go together.” .......... another racist trope, the promiscuous, hypersexual “Jezebel.” ............... T-shirts with the slogan “Joe and the Hoe” were briefly available on Amazon. ............ The lawyer and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” three decades ago to describe how various identities can overlap to produce discrimination more complex than just, for instance, racism plus sexism. ........... “women may not vote against the rampant sexism because of race, and people of color may not vote against the racist and xenophobic dimensions of the Trump assault because of anti-Black racism within Indian communities and misogyny within Black communities.” ............. identity policing. ............. Identity policing is related to broader patterns of “othering,” or casting a person as “not one of us.” .......... the frequent mispronunciations of her name
The US is seeing a resurgence of Covid-19 cases. Small household gatherings are helping drive it, CDC chief says "The consequences of this virus, particularly for older folks -- the people that we really want to gather with on Thanksgiving -- can be really dire," he said. And frankly, I'd rather do a Zoom Thanksgiving with people that I love than expose them to something that might kill them" .................. US health officials should know by November or December whether there is a safe and effective vaccine, Fauci said, adding, "It is conceivable that we might even know before then."
Biden leads Trump by 17 points as election race enters final stage Opinium/Guardian poll finds Biden ahead by 57-40 margin Biden leads on healthcare, the economy and race relations .......... a record 17 points ..... It is just short of the lead in the popular vote that Ronald Reagan enjoyed in his second landslide victory in 1984. Four years later, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis led George HW Bush by 17 points only to suffer defeat, but that poll was taken in July so Bush had ample time to recover. ........ some Republicans fear a rout in the races for the presidency, Senate and House of Representatives. ....... a hectic month that saw the death of the supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump’s disastrous debate performance and a White House outbreak of coronavirus that infected the president himself swung the pendulum decisively in Democrats’ favour. .......... Biden has gained five percentage points among undecided voters since September. ........ His reputation as a successful businessman took a hit from a New York Times investigation into his tax affairs. ........ voters say Biden, 77, has better mental stamina than 74-year-old Trump by a 48% to 44% margin. ........ Trump’s core support is notoriously loyal, and still turning out at his resurrected campaign rallies .......... Nearly two in three (62%) of ex-Trump voters (who voted for him in 2016 but will not do so this year) say his handling of the coronavirus pandemic is the reason they switched their vote. In addition, almost half (47%) of ex-Trump voters say his personality and behaviour contributed to the switch. ......... Democrats have said a massive victory is the surest way to avoid lengthy legal disputes that could even spill over into street violence. .......... Biden’s lead relies on the success of mail-in voting, likely to hit record levels during the pandemic. ....... when it comes to mail-in voters, 75% intend to vote for Biden and only 22% intend to vote for Trump. ......... Half (50%) of voters are worried that if the president loses the election, he will not concede.
The Next Generation of Office Communication Tech with 42 percent of American full-time employees working from home for the foreseeable future as the pandemic lingers, new forms of mixed reality technologies are creating mainstream virtual substitutes for offices, and redefining the future of work in the process. ............ Many companies we work with are using them to shrink their real-world office footprints by about a third on average and energize far-flung employees, many of whom are already more productive while working from home with no commute. ............. Longer term, companies will use mixed reality to create conditions for remote collaboration and innovation that are as good as, or even better than, in person. ......... multidimensional “collaboratories” that are improving knowledge worker productivity and collaboration. ....... Almost a decade before the pandemic struck, technology pioneers began using large-screen video “portals” to connect satellite offices into each other’s worlds through informal, always-on video feeds. ........... Now teams in some of the world’s largest financial services companies and retailers meet in virtual offices using mixed reality programs like Sneek and Pukkateam. ........... The anonymity and scale of the online platform let managers hear more voices, including those who typically would not speak up in person. More employees participated, as peers freely validated each other’s observations. One participant said they had “never felt this listened to before.” ........ online sticky notes, shared digital whiteboards and live co-editing of wikis, slides and documents to bring people together. ........... could design and launch a new digital banking business line and product in a virtual workspace just as well, and in a fraction of the time, as it had one year earlier for another product, when it flew in people to brainstorm in person. .......... the combination of video, voice, chat, and collaboration tools created more opportunities for all team members to contribute, rather than be drowned out by those with loud voices or a forceful presence — or if they simply missed the session because they couldn’t fly in. With greater representation in the virtual room, teams were able to realize better and more holistic solutions in a way that just wasn’t happening before. ......... practically every large corporation we speak with today is asking for innovations to make virtual working sustainably productive. ......... large multi-monitor displays that will move virtual collaboration from laptop screens to a more immersive full-size format .......... Ten years from now, we will look at the current crop of virtual office, focus group and collaboration tools with the same disdain we now have for crackly phone calls.
