stevenkesslar

In a word, Italy. This is consistent with the CDC worst case scenario projections: 217 million Americans infected, 1.7 million Americans dead - IF NO ACTION IS TAKEN. The CDC projected that 2.4 million to 21 million people in the US could end up in the hospital, overwhelming emergency wards and ICUs. So if everyone is internalizing that number as a worst case scenario, that is a good thing. Italy is already running out of capacity. I don't quite get it. They have 20,000 cases in a country with 60 million people. It's not clear why they are already at the breaking point. I have to assume this is a localized issue. There are likely large clusters of outbreaks in certain regions or towns that don't have enough hospital beds. One way or the other, it gives us a picture of what a disaster it would be to allow 200+ million people to get infected. No government leader is going to sit back and let that happen. It is not happening in China, or South Korea, or Spain. The bottom line math is horrific. 1 % turns out to be a big number. In Italy, which skews older, about 10 % of cases are requiring hospitalization. So if you project out 200 million cases, you have maybe 2 to 20 million hospitalizations? Nobody really knows. The horror in that math is the US has fewer than 1 million hospital beds. This is easy math everyone can understand. Swine flu in the US resulted in 60 million infected, 275,000 or so hospitalized, 12,000 or so dead. The death rate was 0.02 %. With COVID-19, the best guess is a 1.0 % death rate. To be clear, COVID-19 seems to kill 50 times more infected people than the swine flu did. To even achieve that death rate, we have to be really smart about this. So that means we have to urgently lower the number and characteristics of the people infected. That is clearly what nations are urgently trying to do. Every Governor in America is probably worrying about ventilators right now, as well as getting the trained medical professionals who know how to use them. The other massive problem is that if all of that happens, the 99 % who still get in car accidents, have heart attacks, or want a knee replacement are pretty much shit out of luck. It is a nightmare scenario. The death rate in Italy is more like 10 % (one report I read said 14 %). Part of that is likely because they were completely unprepared and lack the resources. As an objective fact, that's just not true. China would likely be in the millions of cases right now, had they not been pro-active. That 200+ million number in the US is consistent with the idea that, absent containment, the majority of Americans could get infected. So China was on its way to lots of cases. 500 million? 750 million? You can agree or disagree with what they did. But you can't argue it was not "pro-active". The word being used a lot is "draconian". A WHO study of some 50,000 cases in China showed that the death rate of those infected in the first week (in January) was something like 17 %. The death rate in those infected in the last week (in February) was something like 0.7 %. On the front end "government" was sweeping it under the rug and suppressing information. By the last week they were on top of it. I read that one hospital in Wuhan - I believe one of the makeshift ones - put up a notice that from the beginning of February there had been 1700 patients treated, none of whom died. So China dramatically flattened the curve, and sorted out all the capacity issues - staffing, beds, ventilators, etc. That is, in fact, what "government" does. It actually did prevent lots of people from being a "casualty". That is simply an objective fact. There is overwhelming evidence that some governments were more pro-active, figured out containment strategies and capacity issues, and have dramatically reduced the spread of the virus. Others, like Spain and Italy, are taking desperate measures to flatten the curve - like fining you if you leave your home. Right now I would bet they are planning measures like what China and South Korea have proven to be effective. South Korea is probably most relevant to Western democracies. They are mostly using voluntary compliance and smart coordination, as opposed to top-down and coercive mandates. South Korea designates regions hit hardest by coronavirus as disaster zones South Korea on Sunday reported 76 new coronavirus cases and three deaths, marking the first time in over three weeks that new cases have dropped to double-digits, as President Moon Jae-in declared the hardest hit provinces “special disaster zones”. South Korea has been experiencing a downward trend in new cases and the latest numbers are significantly lower than the peak of 909 cases reported on Feb. 29 and down from the 107 recorded on Saturday. South Korea has been able to dramatically flatten the curve. That is the urgent priority in the US if we don't want a lot of seniors to die completely unnecessarily. The differences with Italy, a nation about the same size, are stark. Italy has 21,000 cases and 1441 deaths so far. South Korea has about 8100 cases and 75 deaths. If you got sick, would you rather be in Italy or South Korea? Part of the reason South Korea is doing this better is they've been through these things before. So they were just much better prepared. They have more hospital beds than almost any other nation in the world. And by being aggressive about free testing and free treatment, they were able to both flatten the curve on infection rate, and provide better life-saving treatment to those who did get sick. There is no question that what governments around the world are doing has resulted in highly variable outcomes. So the CDC can say that 200+ million Americans could become infected. That's like saying 200 million people could get in car accidents, if we have no speed limits or stop lights and encourage everyone to only drive drunk. China and South Korea have both proven, in very different ways, that it doesn't have to play out that way. I don't want to trash Italy. But they are a poster child for what happens when you don't get on top of it quickly, and just keep reacting as each new disaster unfolds. The real question is this: can governments eradicate this virus? If not, how is it contained? When and how do we get back to normal again? South Korea is nowhere near full containment. They still have closed schools and offices, and have banned large public events. And we don't know what will happen when China gradually opens back up again. It will certainly not go right back to normal. The encouraging thing to me is that China, which has cases all over the country, has not had mass outbreaks like what happened in Wuhan all over the country. Bottom line, that means that life is not normal, but it is probably more normal than what is happening in the US right now. They are figuring out ways to test, trace, isolate, and treat any new outbreak. In the US, I think the good news now is that we are past debating whether this is a big fucking deal, and whether the government needs to do anything about it. Now we are into debating the details of what government can and should do. The quicker we get that sorted out, the sooner we can get a handle on this and start gradually getting back to normal. That's the clear lesson from the countries that have been hit hardest and are responding to this the smartest. This LA Times article is a good overview of how free testing, which is about to roll out in the US, could save lots of lives: South Korea’s rapid coronavirus testing, far ahead of the U.S., could be saving lives

This is an awesome video.

Don't worry. The idiots in Sacramento are probably just like the idiots in Wuhan. By the time they do something, it will be too late. Everything will be far, far worse. Speaking of closing down restaurants and airports, that might have been something for them to consider back in January: Mayor of Wuhan, epicenter of coronavirus outbreak, says 5 million people left the city before travel restrictions were imposed Published: Jan. 27, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. ET As a fifth case of the coronavirus was confirmed in the U.S., the mayor of Wuhan has warned that the world should expect infections to keep climbing. On Sunday, Zhou Xianwang, the Mayor of Wuhan, said that 5 million people had left the city before travel restrictions were imposed ahead of the Chinese New Year. He said he expected at least 1,000 of some 3,000 suspected cases to be diagnosed with the highly-contagious virus. There have also been three confirmed cases in the U.S., health officials in the U.S. said. The latest case, confirmed Saturday, was in Orange County; the person had recently visited Wuhan, and was in good condition. The gender and age of the person were not disclosed. When that was written, as it says, there were five cases in the US. Now there are 3000. Apparently, the last thing we need to worry about is idiots taking preventative action. The US is basically on the same trajectory as Wuhan was. It is going up exponentially. So we just went from 2000 to 3000 in a day plus change. So in a week, based on the actual trajectory in Wuhan, there will be 11,000 cases in the US. In two weeks, based on the actual trajectory in Wuhan, there will be 40,000 cases in the US. After that, it gets tricky. In Wuhan, by the time they hit 1000 cases, they went into lockdown. Airports, restaurants, and pretty much all normal daily life. So now they have 80,000 cases, and it has totally leveled off. If we are idiots like them, and go into lockdown, maybe we could limit it to under 100,000 cases. Otherwise, we could go a lot higher. CDC is saying over 200 million cases is the worst case scenario. That would mean over the half the people reading this are likely to be infected.

Trump says some domestic travel restrictions under consideration There have been internal discussions about restricting travel to areas in Washington state and other places considered “hot spots” for the virus. It’s unclear how far along they are in implementing them, people familiar with the matter told CNN. Italy announces 175 deaths and 2,795 cases in one day from coronavirus I put those headlines and that chart up just as a preview of where things seem to be headed. I think in terms of preparedness we should all start considering a mental adjustment. I think lockdown is our friend. I think trying to keep our lives as normal as possible is our enemy. If this were China, this is the point where at least some of the US would go into involuntary lockdown. Actually, we are past that point. On Jan. 23, when Wuhan went into lockdown, China had 639 cases. They ended up with 81,000 cases as of today. The US now has just under 3,000 cases. Do the math. No matter what we do, we'll be over 100,000 cases before long. Every story I read suggests that every country effected is headed for a voluntary lockdown of some sort. I think the quicker that happens, the better. So we may have some sort of travel ban and lockdown in Washington and other "hot spots" soon. There already is a local lockdown in part of New York. But unless some other drastic things change in our mindsets, it buys us a few weeks. I put that chart up there as an illustration of how this will likely play out, state by state. The first case in Washington was reported Jan. 20. You can see how much this changed in just the last two weeks. The problem with saying you can travel to Idaho but not Washington is that there is every reason to believe that in two weeks, Idaho will look the same way Washington looks today. And God knows what Washington will look like in two weeks. That's why I put that Italy headline up there. Absent a lockdown, there is no evidence anywhere on the planet that this won't just get worse. We don't want to be where Italy is. Meaning state by state we start running out of beds, ventilators, doctors, nurses, civil servants, etc. I think this is the opposite of terrorism. The whole concept of terrorism is to hit us where we least expect it, when we least expect it. Like when we get on a plane. If not that, a subway. If not that, when we go to synagogue, or mosque, or restaurant, or grocery store. The whole point is to make anything "normal" something that could expose us to terror or death. It never really works. And part of the reason is that human nature is to say, "Fuck it. Life is going to stay normal. I'll stay calm, and carry on." We actually do the same with long-term illnesses like cancer or AIDS. The whole idea is to keep life as normal as we can, for as long as we can. I think what is working best with this virus is to just take that script and reverse it completely. China is doing it with a heavy hand, and South Korea with informed citizens that basically just don't want to get sick or die. But the basic concept is to embrace "abnormal". Don't go to work. Don't go to school. Don't go to the movies. Don't eat out. If this were China, and you were an infected Mom, you would not even play with your kids. You'd go to quarantine for a few weeks and get well, and also not infect your entire family. Basically what we may need to do is embrace what feels "abnormal". And there's a huge payoff for doing so. If we do get sick, that could mean spending QT in a hospital bed with a ventilator. I'd rather have Netflix, thank you. The CDC is obviously trying to climb a huge learning curve quickly to help us prepare. Earlier this week I was confused when they said anyone over 60 should stay home for "a period of time". Okay, but what does that mean? In the same story it quoted doctors saying this could be with us through 2020 and 2021. So what, I stay at home for a year? The CDC did a different version of the same thing today. They are now saying shutting schools down for eight weeks is better than doing it for two or four. Even so, they are far from clear about how well any closure actually works, absent a larger plan of what the kids do while they are not at school. There's new research that suggests asymptomatic individuals may be spreading this during an incubation period of up to two weeks before they becoming mildly sick, or just don't become sick at all. Example: On Tuesday, Dr. Sandra Ciesek, director of the Institute of Medical Virology in Frankfurt, Germany, tested 24 passengers who had just flown in from Israel. Seven of the 24 passengers tested positive for coronavirus. Four of those had no symptoms, and Ciesek was surprised to find that the viral load of the specimens from the asymptomatic patients was higher than the viral load of the specimens from the three patients who did have symptoms If this is correct, preparedness isn't just not being around people who are sick. Preparedness is also not being around people who are well, or at least think they are well. Logically, this would explain how it is that the virus has spread so far so fast and is growing exponentially. One way or the other, the world is moving toward "abnormal" step by step. I think we should actually race toward abnormal. The countries that have embraced abnormal, like China and South Korea, are doing the best so far in keeping this under control. I would welcome martial law at this point. I'm serious. Give me a hat that says "Make America Healthy Again" and I'll wear it. I am serious. This is a moment for unity and reason. We need to be all in, and also all in it together. Given what we know, it would end this ambiguity about how long we keeps schools closed or how long we stay barricaded in our home or when Broadway starts their shows. Let's just get it over with. All the facts we know point to one thing: the sooner we do something like that, the sooner we can actually kill this virus. Or at least come up with strict, clear, and humane protocols to contain it every time and everywhere it pops up again. The sooner we embrace "abnormal", the sooner we can get back to normal. And at some point we'll have a vaccine and it's "Hasta la vista, COVID-19", to quote Arnie. I'm gonna think of this one as the ISIS virus. If I were a trained soldier, I'd have to train to go fuck around in caves in Afghanistan. Or drive down booby trapped roads in Syria. So thinking about an 8 week or so war with the ISIS virus is a hell of a lot easier than that. I have to go to the grocery store with gloves on, and wash my hands the minute I get home. And if they are out of shrimp and lemons, worst case is that there's those cans of pork and beans in the back of the cupboard. And as much as it was fun to go to @Dane Scott's place and watch Parasite, we can just text and help each other keep the real scary parasites away. If that's all I have to do to win the war against the ISIS virus, sign me up for that. It's sure as shit better than hospital food and a ventilator.

I know I have made my point, and I repeat myself. If there is ever a time to do that, calmly and rationally, this is it. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 When I looked at that yesterday, the number of US cases was about 2,150 I believe. When I was posting the earlier thread, it was 2550 or something like that. Now it is 2950. So it may not be double every day. But the horses are out of the barn. If you look at the chart on the lower right hand side of that page, the yellow line (outside China) is following the pattern set in China almost exactly. In mid-Feb China had about 66,000 cases. Today, the world outside China is a bit ahead of that. Within a day or at most two, World Minus China will exceed 100,000 cases. Not the best time for travel anywhere. We already know that that yellow line is going to keep growing. To achieve the outcome you see, China locked down Wuhan and other areas on January 23rd. Do the math. COVID-19 has estimated incubation periods of 5-14 days. So extreme action taken in late January would begin to show up in reductions in the rate of infection in mid-February. They did. It's better to think about what things might look like in two months than what they look like today. That is the lesson of Italy, circa New Years Day 2020. Italy did not know that, of course. We do. What @purplekow described sounds like what is happening right now in every city and state, and every hospital in America. To me, the patriotic thing to do is to recognize the sacrifice doctors and nurses and others are making to save our lives, and make this as easy for them as possible. If the virus had been left to grow at its own pace in China, every infected individual would have infected two or so more. Cases in China would now number in the millions. Even in an authoritarian state, at some point top down control would collapse - based on lack of doctors, beds, civil servants to monitor compliance, you name it. The good news is that the number of cases in China is leveling off about 80,000 - for now. About 55,000 odd people have recovered and are going home to their families. People say they are tired of the inconvenience, but quite happy to be alive. China is starting to move into very slow and gradual recovery. Instead of a horror movie, this is a movie about hope, to me: I think if we want to save lives, we should all be Wuhans now - in one way or the other. We're all gradually coming to the realization that we can do much of this voluntarily. If we want to know what kind of preparedness works best, we know. This is it. I'm tempted to post a picture of Hiroshima as a sort of point/counterpoint to the images above. It doesn't precisely make the point. So I'll say it instead. We can think of COVID-19 as a sort of viral Hiroshima. The buildings will be fine. It's just the people inside them that won't be. The good news about the "ghost town" approach is that the living and breathing people in those buildings are now going to be able to return to the streets, hopefully safely. For those of us who live alone, there's actually a blessing in that. We're at the least risk of getting infected. If we get sick, we're at less risk of infecting someone else. China literally separated the sick from their families, and put them in quarantine centers. It was a sensible, albeit draconian, thing to do. The main form of transmission, in China at least, was from family member to family member. The people I feel sorriest for, other than the sick, are families with kids. It will be a huge pain in the ass to keep the kids at home as schools close. If they go to school and get sick, they'll be fine. The problem is what happens when they bring the virus home to Grandpa. I'm glad not to have to make any of those choices. Some things in life are just unexpected blessings. I bought a house with a lemon tree in the back yard. I didn't even do it to be prepared for a time like this. This is a good time to count our blessings, stay calm, and look forward to life after we beat a virus.

Thank your service. Probably my favorite book ever is "And The Band Played On." There are lots of heroes and villains in it. But what has stayed with me more than anything is the commitment of the scientists and the doctors to do what you described so eloquently, based on your own experience. Again, thank you. Speaking of which, and since I'll be spending a lot of time alone, I'll be using all this as jack off material. The narrative is sort of, "Dr. PK Saves The World", or some such thing. Should I be casting you as Tom Cruise, or Val Kilmer?

Whatever rocks your boat. For those of you who prefer the notion of 99 % survival (which, in this case, is quite literally the goal for anyone who gets COVID-19) here's a different version of Steven King. It's a 6 minute video. Spoiler alert: if you have not seen The Mist and want to, don't watch. My own interpretation is slightly different than what's stated it that video. I think good fiction, like life itself, always has layers of ambiguity. Very few things are black and white. As the video states, King seemed to intend to leave his version ambiguous. So the message seems kind of muddled. If it is a story of how collective action is the best response if you want everybody to survive, the movie subverts its own message. The one woman who breaks rank and goes off on her own actually has a better outcome than the guy who was saying we all need to be in this together. What the fuck is that about? I assume King's point - or the movie director's point - is that while we are in the middle of the horror, we never really know for sure. That is why there is both fear, and hope. If we knew how it ended, we wouldn't really need either, would we? That said, I agree with the fundamental point King, the director, and this video all want to make. Hope trumps fear. Ultimately, it is organized and purposeful collective action - in this fictionalized horror, the military - that does its job and saves the day. Ultimately, that's way better than being on our own. I'll throw in one other cinematic example, which is clearer. And I think better, because it is a real life horror: AIDS. And I'm trying to keep this apolitical and nonpartisan, which I think I can. I liked Dallas Buyers Club. As far as I can tell, the Gay Establishment embraced it. It won Oscars, and helped create sympathy. We were still two years on the other side of same sex marriage. It certainly helped to create empathy for transgender individuals. There were things in the film that were excellent examples of dramatic license. They turned Ron Woodruff into a flaming homophobe. Even though he may have been a closet bisexual. True or false, it set up a narrative arc of redemption, and created sympathy for Gay men. I'll go with that. Whatever inaccuracies the film had, I assume the LGBTQ+ organizations who embraced it were able to see the forest for the trees. That said, there was something nagging at me all through the film. It became really clear at the end, on a title card: What ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ got wrong about the AIDS crisis At [HIV/AIDS activist Peter] Staley's insistence, the film ends with a title-card noting that AZT went on to save millions of lives as part of HAART. But for the other two hours of the film's running time, the drug is spoken about in overwhelmingly negative terms. You can read the story for details. But if you lived through AIDS, you know this already, painfully. The film spun AZT as a sort of government/FDA plot to poison Gay people, or innocent Straight cowboys like Ron Woodruff. In fact, AZT is what saved people's lives. The initial version, which amounted to an FDA crap shoot, was too toxic. But as that article says, it did extend life for a year or so. The real breakthrough was built on the foundation of AZT, when antiviral cocktails were tested and found to work better. The death rate collapsed by 80 percent in two years. Meanwhile, most of what Woodruff sold through buyers' clubs was crap. AZT was the path to an effective therapy. Woodruff's stuff was never approved by the FDA, and ended up being a dead end. That said, it was a "what the hell?" drug. Something was better than nothing. To go back to King, it's like that woman going off solo into the fog. In the middle of the horror, it's all ambiguity. Plus fear, and hope. My problem with Dallas Buyers Club is it sold itself as a libertarian fantasy, when what really worked in the end was a speedy, science-based, and mostly empathetic government response. Same message as King's horror story. Instead of the military saving us from big bugs, AIDS was about the FDA saving us from microscopic ones. There was one other hero we should all know, and honor: ACT UP. The Gay men and others who demanded an immediate, effective, and compassionate response to a global health crisis. Sound familiar? We, Gay men, of all people actually do know how to win a fight against COVID-19. There will be a lot of ambiguity along the way. But we know that hope beats fear. Sorry if I pissed all over your script, @down_to_business. In the movies, 99 % of the world dying can be great - especially with extra refills of popcorn, which is why I go to movies. In real life, I kind of prefer the idea that 99 % of us live. But that's just me, being a dumb whore.

Actually, it's the opposite. If you believe in democracy, you believe in the wisdom of crowds. If you believe in the wisdom of crowds, what people are now doing is rational. It is rational to prepare. It is rational not to deny. What is irrational is to fight in a supermarket aisle over toilet paper. So there will be some examples of that. So far, though, Americans as a people are acting like they did after 9/11, as far as I can tell. Everybody wants to pitch in. Some neighbor in NY brought a sick guy to the hospital. He had the virus, and the helpful neighbor got the virus, and then the helpful neighbor's whole family got the virus. So that right there tells us two things. First, human nature is on our side. People want to help each other. Second, we absolutely need to plan this out. We need to have well thought out plans to minimize infections, and help the people who do get sick without hurting ourselves. There should be off-site (non emergency room) testing facilities that people can go to when they start to feel sick. My health care provider, Kaiser, is emailing out clear and simple protocols. Call first. Going to an emergency room may get you sick if you just have the flu. If you have COVID-19, just going to the emergency room without calling first may get other people sick. This is not rocket science. The things that are going to matter most about preparedness are completely beyond our control as individuals. The fact is that right now in Italy they are actually running out of hospitals beds. Doctors are following WHO protocols and making decisions about who lives and who dies. The WHO ethical standards are that when there are not enough ICU beds to go around, the youngest and healthier win the lottery. The oldest and sickest lose the lottery. It has nothing to do with meanness, or cruelty, or politics. It's just math, and science. How many hospital beds do we have? How many people need them? Two months ago, the sunny beaches in the south of Italy were no doubt full. As were the restaurants and museums and grocery stores. Nobody thought about it. Nobody prepared, in part because nobody understood what was happening - even in China. That is why the hospital beds in Italy are now full, and region by region they are reaching triage limits. That's why preparation means understanding what we can do now to flatten the curve of how this epidemic plays out. The math is simple. The swine flu virus infected 60 million Americans. The death rate was 0.02 %. That was very low for any flu in any season, thankfully. There were approximately 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths. What seems unique about COVID-19 is that it spreads quickly, but is way more fatal. So now the CDC is projecting a 1 % death rate. Even though in Italy of the 21,527 cases there are already 1,441 deaths. It's an older population. But as bad as 1 % sounds, it could be optimistic. Again, this is not politics. This is math and science, and good-natured people trying to individually and collectively prepare. Just take the CDC's numbers and do the math. 1 % of 60 million infected people is 600,000. In Italy about 10 % of people infected get severe pneumonia and may require hospital treatment. 10 % of 60 million is 6 million. We have less than 1 million hospital beds in the US. This is why in Wuhan they had to urgently build makeshift hospitals, literally overnight. What seems a bit nuts to me is to focus only on the present moment, and not do the simple math and the basic science of where this is going to be in a month or two. Especially if we do nothing to collectively prepare. Italy was picture perfect two months ago. COVID-19 sounded like some weird shit out of Zombie Apocalypse. Now they are simply running out of hospital beds for severely ill people. Within the US borders, there are so many infected people in the US (2000 diagnosed yesterday, 2500 diagnosed today, God knows how many undiagnosed) that we can't stop some version of Italy from playing out here. It's just too late. All we can do is try to flatten the curve so we don't get to the point where people - seniors mostly - who urgently need life saving care can't get it. Coronavirus ‘tsunami’ pushes Italy’s hospitals to breaking point Crisis highlights challenges other European countries could face if containment fails In Bergamo, a town in the foothills of the Alps north-east of Milan, Dr Daniele Macchini used a short break in the fight he and his colleagues are waging against the novel coronavirus to issue a warning to the world. “The war has exploded and the battles are uninterrupted day and night. The cases are multiplying, we have a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason,” he wrote on Facebook last week. “There are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopaedists — we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.” Giorgio Gori, Bergamo mayor, tweeted: “It seems that the increase [in the number of cases] is slowing down, but it’s only because we have no longer beds in intensive care (few are added with great effort). Patients who cannot be treated are left to die.” I've been to Bergamo, several times. Lovely place. I would not wish to be there now, though. The world will get back to normal. But right now, it is anything but normal. Not being able to get eggs or pasta or onions when you want them is a minor pain in the ass. Not being able to get a hospital bed and a respirator when you need it is a whole different thing. This is not Resident Evil. This is the entire country of Italy, March 2020. Here's some easy math ways to think about this. During the COVID-19 epidemic, you can get in your car and drive to the store. Your chances of dying in a car crash are roughly 1 in 10,000. I'm not worried about driving to Stater Bros., my local grocery store. It would actually be safer to fly to a grocery store in Mexico or Italy. My chances of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 100,000 or so. Whether the grocery store is in Palm Springs or PV, somebody could cough near me, and I could get COVID-19. My chances of dying now become 1 in 100. And that is based on optimistic projections about our willingness to collectively prepare. In Italy, due to being one of the first to be hit and the lack of preparation in a country with an older population, it's more like 1 in 10. Call me a bit nuts, but those numbers scare me. In those B grade horror movies, the plot usually involves some fatal error. It is usually a simple thing somebody important overlooks. But everybody in the audience gets it. So we can literally see it coming. That's probably a good way to think about this. Because as fun as movies are, now is not a good time to be going to cinemas. And this is definitely not a movie you want to be in. I've been mostly hanging out in the politics forum, where I can say political things. But this is not political. This is math, and science, and straightforward proven facts about public health. The really good news is that we are all getting back into 9/11 mode. Everybody wants to pitch in, and help out. And this is not a sneak attack that came out of nowhere and killed 2,996 people - including many of the professionals trying to save lives - in a few hours. We know what's coming. We can stop the horror movie none of us really want to see.

Thank you.

Happy New Year donation sent. For those of you who feel comfortable using Zelle on your bank account, that works now. I just did it through B of A, but I know Chase and most major banks use Zelle. All I had to do is add [email protected] as a recipient. This is much less clunky than the old way I did it, which was using the bill pay function of my B of A account. That actually resulted in them mailing a monthly check. This way, using Zelle, it all happens immediately and electronically. Big improvement.

Excellent point. There is a whole long ass thread (naturally, since most of it is stuff I wrote) on the other escort forum relating to decriminalizing prostitution. I won't repeat it, other than to cut and paste my final post over there, edited slightly to downplay the part that may annoy conservatives - since this is not in the politics forum: 1. As predicted, the bad guys - or the alleged bad guys - just moved their websites overseas, to places like Cyprus. Why am I not surprised? Isn't this what everybody predicted? 2. Because of this and many others reasons, trafficking and horrible things have not stopped. They just shifted. Again, just like everybody predicted. I cited [in the thread on the other forum] Paul and Sheila Wellstone's federal anti-trafficking law in the post above. If we ever want to deal seriously with sex and labor trafficking as a nation, that so far has proven to be the best tool to do it. Meaning make it as easy as possible for the women and kids, mostly, who are being trafficked to fight the men who are trafficking, exploiting, raping, abusing, or killing them. The current federal policy is essentially to do the opposite: to turn the women and kids who are being trafficked and exploited into the enemy. 3. It does not appear that any Gay websites are under the microscope, at least for now. But another one of my former client/current friends made a cogent comment about how Rentmen does a "poor job" verifying the identity of advertisers. This could ultimately expose them to concerns about trafficking, which is what DHS used to take Rentboy down. See ya next month, @maninsoma. Dane says hi. The waters are safe with us whores down here.

My singing voice sucks. But I do have other pretty good skills with my mouth, including sucking. The Judy Garland thing will have to be in my next lifetime. This lifetime I just had to make do with sex, and extreme bitchiness. P.S. Forgot to mention. My voice sucks, but like Matthew Modine I have a great sense of smell. Does that count for anything in this life?

Agreed. Imagine being as successful as Steven Perry, the lead singer for Journey. God knows how many huge arenas he's played. Rolling Stone said he's one of The 100 Best Singers. And yet perhaps the performance he'll never forget is that one to a dying kid in a hospital room. That's the power of music. Although, if we're talking about my Make A Wish, this is a no brainer. I want to come back as two people, at the same time. One will be performing on stage at a cabaret venue with about 100 people, surrounded by hot semi-naked men. And the other will be in bed, fucking and cumming to the score of a lifetime. Oh, and since it's all about my Make A Wish, I also want a dress with a shit load of sequins, and a lover with a juicy uncut 12" cock. There. That pretty killed the sweet sentiment of the thread, didn't it.

And while we're on the subject of Journey, I have to give them more credit, for being the gift that keeps on giving. As nice as it is to say I feel lucky to have been successful as a whore, and a political activist, and a landlord, I've known for a long time what I want to be in my next life: a singer. Preferably somebody like Judy Garland, without the drugs and divorces. As much as I could talk about how great it is to have perfect sex or dance on a stage or whatever, I've always felt that there's probably nothing better in life than having a voice that can move people, and the words and music to make it so moving. That's partly what I found so touching about the story above. The incredible power of music, singing, and inspiration. But what it also made me think about is the 21st Century incarnation of Journey's epic anthem, Don't Stop Believin'. According to Wikipedia, it is the No. 1 paid digital download song originally released in the 20th century. So here's another totally pleasant trip down memory lane. Thanks Journey, and thanks Glee.

So I had a pleasant journey down memory lane last night, that led me through several YouTube and Wikipedia searches to this post. I have an old VHS copy of Vision Quest, the 1985 coming of age film with Matthew Modine playing a straight horny young wrestler. (Yes, I actually still have a VHS machine.) I loved the film at the time, probably in part because of all the young male eye candy on offer. The song I most recall from the movie was Crazy For You. It was one of Madonna's first hits, and this was the first film she was in (in a bar, on stage, singing the song). But the song that the movie starts and ends with, as its anthem, is "Only The Young" From Journey. So after I watched Vision Quest last night I got on Wikipedia to remind me what year the movie was from, and was touched to read this: The first individual outside the band to hear the song was sixteen-year-old Kenny Sykaluk of Rocky River, Ohio, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. His mother wrote a letter to the band telling them about her son's terminal condition, and how big a fan he was of Journey. The band flew to his hospital bedside in Cleveland, Ohio at the request of the Make a Wish Foundation. Along with a Walkman containing the new track, the band also brought Kenny a football helmet signed by the San Francisco 49ers and an autographed Journey platinum record award. The experience of playing the song for Kenny left Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain deeply affected. Perry said, "As soon as I walked out of the hospital room, I lost it. Nurses had to take me to a room by myself." On the band's episode of VH1's Behind the Music, Cain broke down in tears recalling the event, remarking that "children should not have to live with that kind of pain". Kenny died the next day, with the Walkman still in his hand. The song brought life into perspective for the band and left them humbled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_the_Young_(Journey_song) That then led me to this very moving two minute YouTube video: And this article: I just cried for several minutes watching the video and reading the article. Props to the men of Journey for making an unlucky young kid's last day special. Props to the kid's Mom for making it happen. It's a reminder of how lucky all of us reading this are to have survived youth and (for most of us) much of adulthood, and to have been able to live fulfilling lives. Maybe not everything we dreamed of or wished for. But dreams are for the young. And the Only The Young video from the movie, complete with male eye candy:

Thanks for posting this. Sent $100. FYI to anyone this is relevant to I used to use the bill pay/auto pay function of my primary bank (B of A) to send donations, which ultimately involved a check being mailed to the WinkWink physical address. This is the first time I used the Zelle transfer function using the email ([email protected]) and it was a pleasant surprise how much less clunky it was. It told me before I hit send that the recipient's bank was in the network, and then I got an immediate confirmation in my checking account. Much preferable on my end (and I'd guess on the receiving end) than the paper check method. My guess is that anyone with a major bank that uses Zelle can do it that way. I had an unrelated experience this past week (with a tenant) where they used my bank checking account number (even in the same bank, Chase) to send a payment, and it generated a paper check that just took longer and was confusing. Then they tried the email or phone number approach and it worked easily and immediately. I would encourage everyone to give and use the email option or phone option if your bank allows it. I think it's easy, and immediate.

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/oscars-best-and-worst-best-pictures/2/ https://www.businessinsider.com/oscar-best-picture-winners-ranked-from-best-to-worst-according-to-critics-2018-2#2-rebecca-1940-90 http://collider.com/best-picture-winners-ranked/#the-best-years-of-our-lives Three different lists of Best Picture winners. If it proves anything, it's how subjective it is. That being said, Driving Miss Daisy (and Crash) just doesn't hold up all that well on any list.

It's essentially ranked choice balloting. A process like that seemingly rewards films that are widely liked as opposed to deeply liked. That would explain Green Book winning over a film like Black KKKlansman. By definition, films that are viewed as "edgy" won't win. But that also would have suggested that La La Land would have won over Moonlight. And yet it didn't. And what explains poor Glenn Close not winning? Never star in a movie in which you are mean to a rabbit? If we can forgive penis flashing and Muslim bashing, surely we can get over that someday, can't we?

I might cut you a break if you sing Razzle Dazzle for me while we watch a Bernie Town Hall together. Give 'em the old razzle dazzle Razzle Dazzle 'em Give us the law to all get Medicare And we'll forget you've got such bad White hair Give 'em the old hocus pocus Green New Deal 'em More free college, less carbon dioxide In 2020 I do foresee Bernie will win, along with Tulsi Razzle dazzle 'em And kiss Trump's ass goodbye!

She worked her ass off for "I Can't Do It Alone," I read. Maybe not a pro dancer, but she imitated one well. Marshall definitely got great performances out of all his leads. The whole movie was electric.

Nope. Kenny doesn't look at all like Eric Cartman. Must be something else. I think Cartman should get an Oscar, if you ask me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91fiAjoC4Ao That does it. Give me you Gay card. You've lost it, permanently.

Thank you for mentioning that. Bohemian Rhapsody also deserves mention in the "Why Am I Not Surprised?" or "Really? But What The Fuck Did You Expect?" award category. There's no shortage of critical hit pieces on Bohemian Rhapsody saying it dishonors Gays by downplaying Mercury's in-your-face homosexuality and misrepresenting when he was diagnosed. I actually didn't even see the movie, which I now regret, so I can't make a judgment about it. I did see Dallas Buyers Club, and I thought that was sad. I always liked Matthew McConaughey before that, mostly as ripped eye candy in rom-coms. The movie soured me on him, because it seemed like it misrepresented the AIDS crisis in order to be Oscar bait for him. What particularly bothered me is the way the movie made the FDA and government the enemy, and as far as I can tell lied about the swindler McConaughey portrayed, to make him a hero and earn him an Oscar. At the end of Dallas Buyers Club, before the credits rolled, there was a disclaimer about AZT. It hit the nail on the head about the movie's factual distortions. So after I saw it I came home and read a bunch of articles about it. And I think it's fair to say the movie just rewrote history. To my knowledge, no LGBTQ organizations went after it for massive distortion. In fact, they mostly applauded it for making an AIDS victim and a drag queen objects of sympathy. So to me that was a very clear lesson. If you expect movies to be about reality, don't go see most movies. Even if they are based on facts, they are mostly works of art, with opinions and biases. And as long as it moves the culture train mostly forward, it's all good to most people. In this regard, I have the perfect movie-going companion in Dane Scott. We saw Green Book, Beale Street, and Selma together, which are all of the same ilk. He mostly took them at face value, as entertainment, and was moved by all three of them - as was I. But when I watch movies, my mind is acting the way you would guess from my writing. It doesn't shut up. So after the movie Dane can summarize his reaction in about 60 seconds of emotionally laden words, like about how he was moved or he cried. And I could talk for an hour if he let me. So I learned to shut up. I'll just go home and spend a few hours reading about it. My point in bringing that up is that all these movies served their purposes quite well, I think. Some of it depends on how much the director wants to entertain, or challenge. And some of it depends on how much the viewer wants to be entertained or moved, and how much they want to be challenged. Dane asked me to go see Bohemian Rhapsody, and I didn't bother, mostly because it got mediocre reviews. I think he saw it the way Hollywood did: as the story of a Gay icon and hero, plain and simple. Of course, the other thing that should go under the "Really? But What The Fuck Did You Expect?" category is that no one should be surprised that Steven Kesslar is going to overthink everything.

I think these paragraphs from the LA Times article relates pretty well to judging Spike Lee's performance: It’s strangely troubling that Ali — who won his first supporting actor Oscar for 2016’s “Moonlight,” an achingly beautiful portrait of gay black masculinity — has now won another award for playing a gay black man in a movie that has so little respect for his identity. There’s an even ghastlier irony in the fact that the academy that broke new ground by giving its highest honor to “Moonlight” two years ago has now seen fit to bestow the same prize on a movie that is “Moonlight’s” complete aesthetic, emotional and moral antithesis. Vulture’s Mark Harris aptly described “Green Book” as “a but also movie, a both sides movie” that draws a false equivalency between Vallelonga’s vulgar bigotry and Shirley’s emotional aloofness, forcing both characters — not just the racist white dude — to learn something about themselves and each other. It’s a tactic, Harris noted, whose echoes can even be found in a terrific older movie (and best picture winner) like “In the Heat of the Night,” and it exists mainly to reassure any audience that might be uncomfortable with a black man gaining the moral high ground. You can argue that Ali was as much a lead actor as Mortensen, and that it's an insult that one was nominated for a supporting role, and the other for a lead role. That being said, Ali won. And now he's one of only two Black actors to win two Oscars, I believe. And if there's a statement to be made by his two wins, it's that he's a very good actor and he can portray very different characters in emotionally searing performances. And Ali's two award-winning performances are not the antithesis of each other. Dr. Shirley was a fighter, and the movie showed him fighting. The movie was actually ABOUT him fighting racism, albeit in a subversive way. It was not inappropriate to have Rep. Lewis basically bless the film. But it is fair to say the way that Green Book and Moonlight were made was pretty much the antithesis of each other. I agree with the LA critic that there was a false moral equivalence in Green Book. The movie was set up to be a feel good movie for White people - which is probably why somebody like Farrelly (There's Something About Mary) was chosen to direct it. In fact, it should be mentioned that Spike Lee was nominated as Best Director, and Peter Farrelly wasn't. There's some justice in that. It doesn't surprise me at all that Spike Lee would, in effect, publicly and loudly call bullshit on what he sees as a false moral equivalence. His one word answer to a question in the press conference covered it: "Facts." From the LA critic: Still others will be tempted to identify a stubborn strain of Trumpian anti-intellectualism among “Green Book” lovers who dug in their heels in defense of a much-maligned favorite. They may have a point. I remain optimistic that, as with “Crash’s” ill-remembered victory, the coronation of “Green Book” will turn out to be not a re-entrenchment but a calamitous fluke — the academy’s last concession (for now) to that portion of the white moviegoing audience that still believes stories of justice and progress will always have to be negotiated on their terms. As Shirley tells Vallelonga early on in “Green Book”: “You can do better.” His rebuke might just as well extend to the movie he’s in and to a voting body foolish enough to honor it. To dredge up my rear view mirror analogy, I think that last paragraph is spot on. Whether you call it a "fluke" or a "last gasp" of a certain kind of sentiment, Green Book will probably be remembered as an entertaining and palatable symbol of what we were leaving behind. Not what lies ahead.

I don't disagree with you. The polite and gracious thing to do would have been to sit there. Arguably, even to sit there and APPLAUD. That being said, why am I not surprised that Spike Lee isn't going to define himself as the polite Black guy in the room? There's something to be said about even that, on a symbolic level. When Hattie McDaniel became the first Black to win an acting award, she could not sit at the table with the other stars. They had to pull in favors even to let her sit in the back of the award room - even in LA. Her famous line when she was attacked for her role as the subservient Black is that she'd rather make a living playing a maid than being a maid. And behind the camera she did some groundbreaking work tearing down racially restrictive covenants on where Blacks could live in LA. So on a symbolic level, there is something fitting about Spike Lee being a little shit and storming to the back of the room and apparently trying to leave the auditorium, and then going back to his seat and bitching with the first Black to win an Oscar for screenwriting for a film titled - wait for it - Get Out. How ironic is that?

Thanks for posting that article. And now for the opposing point of view. (Oops. I see @Kenny beat me to it while I was typing my diatribe.) I wasn't too happy that Green Book won, either. Although I did really enjoy the film. I didn't think it was Best Picture of the year. Or anywhere close. I guess the positive thing to say about it is that it's better than Driving Miss Daisy. Seeing that video of Spike Lee in the article above was a nice way to put a cap on it for me. I'm not sure I'd agree with him that he was being gracious. It's more like he was being just gracious enough. One of my favorite moments in the awards was when Samuel Jackson read his name, and Lee jumped up in Jackson's arms. I didn't know til I read that interview above that they were college buddies. It was definitely a moment when somebody who deserved recognition got it. As Spike Lee said, in Do The Right Thing he talked about gentrification and global warming. We're still talking about that. Who's talking about Driving Miss Daisy? The other thing in that presser that I liked is that Lee credited #OscarsSoWhite and the former Academy head, who opened up the Academy "to look like the rest of the world." As he noted, three Black women won Oscars. It's also a good thing that Spike Lee is behind the camera, rather than in front of it. The negative thing I'll say about him is that his speech was almost incomprehensible. It obviously was the only really overtly political statement of the night. I'm fine with that. But it's an awards ceremony about acting, for Christ's sake. He should have had Jackson read his speech and add the word "fuck" a lot! I thought we beat all the controversies with Green Book to death earlier in this thread, but I just learned in the last few days there are two more. There's the Director, Farrelly, flashing his penis decades ago. And the writer, Tony Lip's son, endorsed the fact-free claim about Muslims cheering on 9/11, until he was challenged and then deleted the tweet and apologized. Green Book somehow managed to embody every offensive hot spot of 2019, from gross male sexual behavior to white saviors to Muslim bashing. Woo hoo! None of this is new, of course. There's a long tradition in Hollywood of forgiving people like Casey Affleck and Mel Gibson and lots of others, as long as they don't go too far over the line, and as long as they apologize. In fact, the Kevin Hart controversy even threw that whole thing about apologizing for homophobia in, too. All in all, I'd actually give Hollywood an A- and say it served its function pretty well this year: of entertaining us, and of being an informal arbiter of cultural norms. This actually is a time of huge cultural conflict. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the conflict seeped into the movies, and the Academy. I'm glad they didn't let a Black guy who wouldn't offer a sincere apology for lots of homophobic slurs host the show. And I can actually make a good argument for why Green Book SHOULD have won. Part of the role of Hollywood, I think, is to smooth things out and bring our culture together. And the driving analogy actually fits pretty well into how they do that. There's the part about looking into the rear view mirror, and smoothing things out as they pass behind you. And there's the part about looking out of the front mirror, and seeing what is right ahead of you. Green Book, like Driving Miss Daisy, was mostly a rear view mirror movie. Those movies are easier to make. And they are unifying. Recall that at the Golden Globes, it won as Best Comedy, not Best Drama. Part of the point was to turn it into something we could all look back and even laugh at. We can all agree NOW, in 2019, that the kind of virulent racism practiced in the South in Dr. Shirley's days was bad. Woo hoo! The "tell" that Green Book was probably going to win was having Rep. John Lewis introduce the film. I actually thought that was extremely gracious. It did speak to what is right and wrong about the film. People who would never agree with Rep. Lewis's political agenda in 2019 at least now agree that people like him shouldn't have their heads beaten in by White Supremacist cops. There's a form of progress in that. Black KKKlansman was partly a rear view mirror movie, too. Except the difference was that Spike Lee intentionally tied it very clearly to what is happening right now, and where we are headed. Barry Jenkins did the same thing with If Beale Street Could Talk. So Lee and Jenkins and Jordan Peale are mostly interested in looking out the front mirror, and talking about the challenges ahead of us. Spike Lee made that explicit in his sort of incomprehensible speech. Of course that's going to stir up way more controversy. So I feel like Spike Lee. I'd rather have a film that's looking out of the front window win. But I understand why the rear view mirror movie won. I enjoyed it, and I can be gracious enough about it. Following on what I said above, if the range in the Oscars now is from movies like Green Book being the backward looking ones to movies like If Beale Street Could Talk and Black KKKlansman and Get Out and Moonlight being the forward and edgy one, that's not a bad place to be. As Spike Lee noted, in 1990 he wasn't even nominated for Best Director. This year he was nominated. He lost to a Director making a film in Spanish about growing up in Mexico. And he won for writing a brilliant script. That's not a bad night for Spike. Actually, I was hoping Black Panther would win Best Picture. It wasn't really the Best Picture of the year, either. But it avoided all the overtly political controversies of some of the other films. It was a huge blockbuster, and it broke huge new ground in being a Black-driven blockbuster that unified and entertained everyone. Giving it the Best Picture Oscar would have been a fitting symbol, because as a society I actually do feel that's something about where we are right now that we can all feel good about.