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HomeEconomics2:00PM Water Cooler 10/20/2022 | bare capitalism

2:00PM Water Cooler 10/20/2022 | bare capitalism


By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Chook Track of the Day

Darkish-eyed/Yellow-eyed Junco, Gila, Arizona, United States

* * *

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the biggest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to suppose; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“The logic of the insult and the logic of scientific classification symbolize the 2 excessive poles of what a classification could also be within the social world.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“Senate Dems press SEC chair to gradual Wall Avenue guidelines” [Politico]. “In a beforehand unreported letter, a dozen Democrats led by Sen. Jon Tester of Montana requested Gensler to offer company America and the broader public extra time to weigh in on the raft of guidelines the company is proposing. The SEC’s agenda features a landmark local weather threat disclosure rule for public corporations, new transparency necessities for hedge funds and a revamp of the inventory market’s plumbing. The Democrats who signed the letter embody: Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, Tom Carper and Chris Coons of Delaware, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Gary Peters of Michigan and John Hickenlooper of Colorado.” • Nicely, a lot for Warnock. Naturally, the Democrats try to screw up one of many few vibrant coverage spots within the Biden Administratation (antitrust being the opposite).

2022

* * *

“Younger Voters Approve of Democratic Insurance policies However Don’t Credit score the Social gathering, Teen Vogue and Change Analysis Discover” [Teen Vogue]. n = 1,173. “Though Democrats have loved latest legislative victories, there appears to be a spot between these achievements and what the celebration has been capable of talk to younger voters. Many respondents haven’t heard of the laws Democrats have handed. Some don’t know who the candidates are of their statewide midterm elections and what they stand for. ‘We would see larger enchancment in key measures if lawmakers and campaigns straight communicated these insurance policies to younger voters,’ the Change Analysis staff tells Teen Vogue. ‘Sadly, few [young voters] have heard about these accomplishments.’ Fewer than 30% of surveyed voters have heard of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the primary important federal gun reform laws in practically three many years. Barely half have heard in regards to the Inflation Discount Act, which is finest recognized for its provisions to scale back US carbon emissions, and solely 23% have heard so much in regards to the IRA. Simply weeks earlier than the election, virtually half of the respondents say they’ve seen, learn, or heard ‘solely just a little’ or ‘nothing in any respect’ in regards to the candidates for Congress of their space. There are two important outliers to this consciousness hole: Most younger voters have heard in regards to the Supreme Courtroom overturning Roe v. Wade (97%) and the Biden administration forgiving $10,000 in federal scholar mortgage debt (89%). Scholar debt aid has made 40% of respondents both a lot or considerably extra supportive of Biden and the Democrats, and 4 in 10 voters deem it a “important step ahead,” in contrast with 32% who name it “too little, too late.’”

PA: “It’s a canine struggle: The battle over adverts concentrating on Oz relating to animal abuse” [Politico]. “Adverts detailing the abuse that allegedly occurred beneath Republican Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz’s watch whereas he was a principal investigator on the Columbia College Institute of Comparative Drugs have resulted in an embittered back-and-forth between the Oz marketing campaign and the tremendous PAC who funded them…. Oz’s marketing campaign has denied his involvement within the abuse, claiming he was not within the working room throughout or after operations, and that he was not alerted to the abuse till after the instances had been completed.” • Absolutely a “principal investigator” is meant to know these items?

2024

“Donald Trump And Tulsi Gabbard: The 2024 GOP Ticket?” [1945]. “bookmaker Betfair has positioned Gabbard because the third almost certainly candidate to win the GOP nomination – at 10 to 1 – displacing former Vice President Mike Pence to fourth place. Betfair nonetheless has Trump as the favourite, at 11-to-8 odds. If Trump does win one other nomination, Betfair has Gabbard because the second almost certainly candidate to hitch him on the ticket, with 4-to-1 odds. Ron DeSantis is the favourite to be Trump’s working mate, at 16-to-5.” • Hmm.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, plainly persons are truly studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are lots of updates. So I should try this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Social gathering (“the Democrat Social gathering is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, the truth is, a tough downside. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working components of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not totally) these parts comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

Be aware, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

Clinton Legacy

No:

I’ve helpfully underlined the half the place Chelsea, not figuring out what she says, says it.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics” [Eric Levitz, New York Magazine]. Chris Arnade first popularized the entrance row/again row distinction, shorthand for what Levitz takes on right here. “Blue America is an more and more rich and well-educated place….. A extra educated Democratic coalition is, naturally, a extra prosperous one. In each presidential election from 1948 to 2012, white voters within the prime 5 % of America’s revenue distribution had been extra Republican than these within the backside 95 %. Now, the alternative is true: Amongst America’s white majority, the wealthy voted to the left of the center class and the poor in 2016 and 2020, whereas the poor voted to the precise of the center class and the wealthy.” Wierd flex on “left,” however OK. Extra: “There are worse issues for a political coalition to be than prosperous or educated. Professionals vote and donate at greater charges than blue-collar employees. However school graduates additionally comprise a minority of the citizens — and an underrepresented minority at that.” Weak base, weak celebration (together with a reliance on the extremely credentialed organs of state safety, the press, and Huge Tech — distinctions with out variations — to make up the numbers. Extra: “For my part, schooling polarization can’t be understood with no recognition of the values divide between educated professionals and dealing individuals within the mixture. That divide is rooted in every class’s disparate methods of life, financial imperatives, socialization experiences, and ranges of fabric safety. By itself, the emergence of this hole may not have been ample to set off class dealignment, however its adversarial political implications have been tremendously exacerbated by the previous half-century of inequitable progress, civic decline, and media fragmentation.” • Be aware the weirdly contradictory usages of “class”. Nonetheless, properly price a learn, since Levitz is making an attempt to work although some actually knotty points. Now, talking of “values”–

“The Loss of life Eaters: Covid within the Liberal Creativeness” [Greg Gonsalves, The Nation]. “In poring over The Pandemic Diary—a magisterial work of a whole lot of pages of textual content and pictures—what I rapidly realized was that this was not my pandemic, particularly in that first yr, the place Camilo confirmed an evolving streetscape of New Yorkers in poorer communities within the metropolis, out and about in masks, making an attempt to outlive a plague as finest they might. In the meantime, many people stayed house within the early months of Covid-19, ordering groceries and different important on-line, whereas some decamped out of the cities all collectively. After all, the “many people” are the skilled class who might decide out of probably the most harmful circumstances over the previous two and a half years, within the consolation that our class afforded. Camilo’s images are for me basically a story of two pandemics, during which social and financial class, together with race, are the dividing traces…. our insurance policies on Covid-19—and never simply on colleges—have largely been based mostly on taking the social realities of the well-off because the impartial, default setting. This attitude nonetheless predominates, from the pages of our main newspapers to the facilities of energy in our cities and cities, the states and the nation as a complete. In some unspecified time in the future, after we cease blaming Donald Trump for our pandemic woes and even give attention to the coverage failures of the Biden administration, we’ve got to try ourselves—or at the least my very own demographic: liberal, economically safe, extremely educated, privileged professionals—and our function in all this.” • When hell freezes over, can be my guess.

“Democracy balances on the brink in Kansas and U.S. Too many people select to not discover.” [Kansas Reflector]. “As proof, I current two separate but interconnected tales. The primary appeared in Kansas Reflector over the weekend. It outlined the potential penalties of a case earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. Known as Moore v. Harper, the case includes a weird idea known as the impartial state legislature principle. As Minnesota Reformer reporter Michelle Griffith defined, if the nation’s excessive courtroom backs this principle, the implications may very well be cataclysmic. State lawmakers might “enact legal guidelines to make it tougher to vote in federal elections with out assessment from state courts. Legislatures might shorten the early voting interval, prohibit mail-in balloting to sure counties and require voter ID, amongst different measures.’ Legislatures — together with the supermajority GOP one foisted upon Kansas — might have their method with election regulation. State courts couldn’t cease them. Griffith writes additional that ‘administration of the presidential election is beneath a distinct clause, so at stake is solely the administration of congressional elections.’ Given the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s latest monitor document, nonetheless, that hardly reassures. Now, preserve that scary state of affairs in thoughts whereas I pivot to the second story. The New York Occasions famous final week that greater than 370 Republican candidates working this yr have voiced doubts in regards to the 2020 election. That’s a majority of these working from the celebration.”

“Election directors are beneath assault in Texas. Right here’s what which means for the midterms.” [Texas Tribune]. “With the 2022 midterms lower than a month away, election directors in Texas and elsewhere proceed to face a degree of harassment and threats that consultants say had by no means been skilled earlier than the November 2020 presidential election. In August, all the workers of the elections workplace in Gillespie County, about 80 miles west of Austin, resigned, citing threats, ‘harmful misinformation’ and an absence of assets. The identical month, Bexar County elections administrator Jacque Callanen informed KSAT, a San Antonio information station, that her division was confronting comparable challenges. ‘We’re beneath assault,’ Callanen mentioned. ‘Threats, meanness, ugliness.’ She added that workers members had been drowning in frivolous open-records requests for mail ballots and functions. Texas is one in every of a number of states focused by right-wing activists who’re in search of to throw out voter registrations and ballots, in accordance with The New York Occasions. Final month, offended activists disrupted a routine occasion during which officers publicly check voting gear exterior of Austin, swarming the Hays County elections administrator and Texas Secretary of State John Scott, a Republican, whereas alleging unproven election regulation violations.” • OTOH, if one end result of all this commotion is the abolition of voting machines, I’m right here for that. OTOH, once I consider “election directors” I consider good outdated church girls who cross my identify off the voter record, hand me a poll, after which give me an “I Voted” sticker. It will be unconscionable to harras them, particularly as a result of they’re performing an essential civic obligation.

#COVID19

• ”COVID Charges Again Above 20% in Components of Manhattan as Virus Rebounds” [NBC New York]. “COVID-19 positivity charges are again above 20% in components of Manhattan, as the most recent metropolis knowledge point out the virus is digging in forward of winter. . Only a day prior, no neighborhood was over 20%…. You could not have heard of those two subvariants earlier than — . Each are descendants of omicron, which has confirmed to be probably the most vaccine-elusive and infectious COVID variant to this point, and each are spreading at speedy charges. That’s very true within the CDC’s New York area, which additionally consists of New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Based on the well being company’s newest variant report, these subvariants account for 11.6% and eight% (19.6%), respectively, of COVID instances for the week ending Oct. 15, up from 4.1% and 1.9% (6%) within the report two weeks prior. The CDC estimates these two variants might account for as much as 36.6% of New York space instances, which is sort of double the highest-range estimate on the nationwide degree.” • Apparently, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is in Hell’s Kitchen. So is the New York Passenger Ship Terminal, for cruise ships. Penn Station is simply south. The Covid practice all the time leaves on time, doesn’t it? And there’s all the time one other one coming! An alert reader informs me of a rise in mask-wearing in New York working class areas. Can different readers affirm?

* * *

“Sports activities bars will be nice locations for catching the Phillies and Eagles — and COVID-19” [The Inquirer]. “With the Phillies within the Nationwide League championships, the Eagles nonetheless undefeated, and the Union making waves, it’s a good time for Philadelphia sports activities fever. However do not forget that festive followers can put themselves susceptible to an actual fever — as within the form brought on by the flu or COVID-19. Crowded areas with a number of consuming and shouting, akin to a sports activities bar or a packed stadium, are prime spots for the unfold of infectious illness, public well being consultants say. Sure, official COVID totals are pretty low in the mean time. But in Philadelphia and the remainder of the nation, these numbers have lengthy been thought of to be an underestimate, on condition that so many individuals are actually testing themselves at house, if they’re getting examined in any respect. The secure guess is to imagine that the virus is circulating, mentioned Chrysan Cronin, director of the general public well being program at Muhlenberg School. Working example: Twenty-four out of 150 individuals who attended a latest celebration in honor of former Inquirer editor Gene Roberts have since examined constructive for COVID, mentioned occasion organizer Arlene Notoro Morgan, assistant dean for exterior affairs at Temple College’s Klein School of Media and Communication. The celebration, held in New York Metropolis, lasted for hours and featured loads of drink and spirited dialog — very like the environment at a sports activities bar.” • To be younger and silly is one factor. To be outdated and silly is kind of one other.

* * *

• I ponder why:

And:

I don’t see how a society that leaves 1,000,000 deaths unmourned and unrecognized, collectively, might keep away from appreciable “anger, worry and disappointment.” There’s no catharsis, no launch, not even a “nationwide dialog.” (Examine the AIDS quilt, now on the Nationwide AIDS Memorial. There’s nothing like that catharsis in the present day, and a Covid Memorial is unlikely). As a substitute, we’ve got smiling, and the demand that everyone smile. (Little question the flip facet of the smile energy tripping is the epidemic of individuals grinding their tooth at evening.) As a blogger who ingests an infinite amount of “anger, worry and disappointment conveyed by information media headlines” every day I really feel this situation keenly. After all, there’s relatively numerous actual world causes to really feel anger, worry, and disappointment. The problem, I believe once more, is the dearth of launch. Maybe catharsis can’t be monetized in the identical method that unresolved feelings will be.

“‘The Rage Would Come Out of Nowhere’: Persona Change Has Emerged as a Symptom of Lengthy Covid” [Rolling Stone]. “Whereas there’s nonetheless a protracted strategy to go, because of researchers like Nordvig, we’re starting to see what’s occurring contained in the brains of these with Lengthy Covid. ‘In superior imaging — particularly in a few of our research — we see modifications in blood circulation, blood permeability, and mind metabolism that overlap with areas chargeable for these areas of the persona,’ [Anna] Nordvig [co-founded the Post-COVID “Brain Fog” Clinic at Weill Cornel] explains. ‘Neuropsychological testing is one thing we additionally ship some sufferers for, to assist diagnose the [personality] change. That is nonetheless beneath examine.’ And on condition that Nordvig sees Lengthy Covid persona change as probably being a mix of neurological points and the psychological well being affect of long-term stressors, one trigger shouldn’t be considered as extra ‘official’ than the opposite. ‘The factor is, it’s a false dichotomy, as a result of ,’ [Adam] Kaplin [of Johns Hopkins] explains. ‘So saying that it’s each implies that they’re interacting with each other.’ This interplay is one thing [Julie] Fallon has skilled firsthand. Earlier than she realized she was coping with Lengthy Covid, she sought neurological remedy for what she thought was post-concussion syndrome, and added a psychiatrist to her multidisciplinary medical staff. ‘At that time I used to be evaluated and recognized with PTSD, extreme social anxiousness, generalized anxiousness dysfunction, panic, and melancholy,’ she explains. ‘I used to be presenting with the kind of trauma skilled by battle veterans.’ It will take a number of months, however as soon as Fallon was capable of her persona change, her persistent rage went away, and she or he felt like her pre-Covid self once more. Equally, the turning level for [Tony] Marks got here when he was capable of in his persona and modify his conduct accordingly.” • I can testify that recognizing the Course of? Change? Syndrome is essential. I can nonetheless keep in mind studying a Scientific American article on Seasonal Affective Melancholy when crossing the Charles River on the Purple Line on a darkish winter day. I learn the signs, and so they had been what I used to be experiencing (gobbling down cookies for the carbs was one IIRC). As soon as the whatever-it-was had a reputation, I used to be capable of acknowledge and management it from that time ahead, which made a giant distinction in my life. The thoughts actually did have an effect on the mind.

* * *

• The record will get fairly lengthy:

#3 is denial. #4 is bravery.

* * *

• “Automobile Seat Headrest Cancels Upcoming Tour Dates As a result of Of Ongoing Publish-COVID Well being Points” [UpRoxx]. “When Automobile Seat Headrest canceled a Chicago-area present final month, singer Will Toledo defined that he was experiencing, “A post-COVID situation which includes heavy nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and a buzzing nervous system.” Dubbed “histamine intolerance,” the ailment had Toledo “caught in mattress” and is likely one of the extra frequent unwanted effects of Lengthy COVID signs. Now it appears as if Toledo’s well being has not improved, and Automobile Seat Headrest has canceled an upcoming West Coast Tour, in addition to the band’s look at When We Had been Younger Fest in Las Vegas…. The dialog surrounding Lengthy COVID appears to be effervescent up within the music trade and could be very a lot an actual one.” • Bitter irony in “When We Had been Younger” fest.

* * *

• You do need to admit that Covid minimizers have been utterly masterful of their “public well being” [sic] “communications”:

What on earth induced the organizers of IDWeek (“the joint annual assembly of the Infectious Illnesses Society of America (IDSA), Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Drugs Affiliation (HIVMA), the Pediatric Infectious Illnesses Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Illnesses Pharmacists (SIDP)) to place not solely David Leonhardt however Emily Oster on their (unmasked) panel? I didn’t know they had been within the enterprise of infectious illness promotion!

* * *

• ”Making Hassle” [Science]. A assessment of forthcoming modifications to GOF (Achieve of Operate) research. “A U.S. clampdown could have no sway over privately funded GOF analysis or what occurs in different nations, which usually lack insurance policies just like the P3CO framework. In Japan and most of Europe, for instance, oversight is restricted to guidelines on biosafety and, generally, biosecurity together with voluntary self-regulation, say biosecurity consultants Gregory Koblentz of George Mason College and Filippa Lentzos of King’s School London. It’s too quickly to say how a 2020 Chinese language biosafety regulation will have an effect on PPP analysis, they are saying… In the meantime, a rising variety of laboratories around the globe are leaping into the sphere. In an interview with the MIT Know-how Evaluation final yr, for instance, [coronavirus expert Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina] famous that simply three or 4 labs had been engineering bat coronaviruses earlier than the pandemic, however that quantity has since multiplied. The growth is ‘unsettling,’ he mentioned, as a result of some ‘inexperienced’ teams might proceed ‘with much less respect for the inherent threat posed by this group of pathogens.’ (Baric couldn’t be reached for this story.)” • So the horse is out of the barn?

* * *

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to group transmission. (That is the map CDC desires solely hospitals to take a look at, not you.)

Lambert right here: I’ve to say, I’m seeing increasingly more yellow and extra blue, which continues to please. However is the pandemic “over”? Nicely….

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker, October 18:

0.9%.

Readers, please click on by means of on this, in case you have a minute. Since Walgreens did the precise factor, let’s give this venture some stats.

Wastewater

Wastewater knowledge (CDC), October 16:

October 15:

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how gradual the variant knowledge is. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everyone will get the outcomes from them? Further sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].

NEW Variant knowledge, nationwide (Walgreens), October 7:

Lambert right here: BQ.1*, out of nowhere. So superior.

Variant knowledge, nationwide (CDC), September 24 (Nowcast off):

Deaths

Loss of life price (Our World in Knowledge):

Whole: 1,092,031 – 1,091,086 – 1,090,802 = 945 (945 * 365 = 344,925, which is in the present day’s LivingWith™ quantity (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would really like, although they’ll discuss themselves into something. If the LivingWith™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could need to determine that is what the powers-that-be contemplate “mission achieved” for this specific tranche of dying and illness.

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, every day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like all the pieces else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

The Gallery

Matisse, you say. From 1915:

From a search of artbots on The Twitter, many artists tried their hand at #Cubism. Paraphrasing MarkTwain Invoice Nye on Wagner: “Picasso’s artwork is healthier than it appears to be like.”

Zeitgeist Watch

“A Sin to Eat: The Untold Story of Anorexia as Faith” [Jezebel]. “Amelia resides out her early twenties at a time when pro-skinny social media content material is trigger for censorship, and consuming disorder-related hospitalizations are reportedly on the rise amongst adolescents. On the similar time, New York podcasters canvas the virtues of skinniness in ketamine drawls, whereas the Y2K trend revival evokes commentators to affirm that ‘skinny is in once more.’ She’s in a double-bind. As a younger lady, she’s taught that her alignment with in the present day’s magnificence beliefs grants her consideration, affection, and envy. But she’s additionally reprimanded for taking that lesson in earnest, as journalists, dad and mom, and on-line commentators have a tendency to position the blame on people like her for reinforcing ‘painfully skinny’ waif woman beliefs, with out providing any empathy for why she would possibly must pursue skinniness as her life’s final that means within the first place. ‘It’s not about some skinny waif TikTok aesthetic,’ Amelia says, refuting anybody who would possibly misunderstand her objectives. ‘I need to be skinny so I can really feel like an ethereal angel. If I could make it by means of the day with out binging, then I will be pure and good. It’s virtually like my very own faith.’ So into the world of subliminals, pro-anorexia hashtags, and angel numbers Amelia escaped to worship amongst those that do perceive her. You’ll encounter loads of individuals like Amelia throughout TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, who use thinspirational saints like Alana Champion of their show photographs and angel numbers of their handles.” • I don’t know if it is a ethical panic or not. I relatively hope so.

Class Warfare

“Office accidents loom behind latest rise in union exercise” [Minnesota Reformer]. ” It’s no coincidence that right here in Minnesota at the least, a lot of the workforce revolt is concentrated inside a few of the most harmful industries for employees. And people dangers received even worse throughout the pandemic…. Minnesota’s office sickness and harm price has historically run greater than the U.S. common. However that hole widened even additional in 2020, the final yr for which the Division of Labor and Business has full knowledge. That yr there have been 3.5 OSHA-recordable office sicknesses and accidents for each 100 full-time personal sector employees within the state, roughly 30% greater than the two.7 per 100 nationwide. The information additional present that the very best charges of harm and sickness had been present in personal trade nursing and residential care services, the place the speed of 13.7 sicknesses and accidents per 100 employees was near 4 occasions the statewide common. Justice and public security professions had been subsequent on the record, adopted by native authorities nursing services, personal hospitals and state authorities nursing services. 4 out of the 5 most harmful professions in Minnesota, in different phrases, contain nursing and residential care. These numbers partly clarify why well being care employees have been on the forefront of a lot of the state’s union exercise. The COVID-19 pandemic was behind the lion’s share of these figures. The pandemic accounted for 41% of all accidents and sicknesses, with a lot of these inside the well being care sector. The speed of harm and sickness amongst well being care employees successfully doubled between 2019 and 2020.” • Essentially the most concrete materials profit in any respect is your life. “You may have the precise to not be killed.” –The Conflict.

“Prime Week Walkouts Hit Amazon, from Air Hub to Supply Station” [Labor Notes]. “Amazon’s huge distribution community is staggering. There’s the invisible lacework of surveillance algorithms and synthetic intelligence. There are the seen footprints: vehicles, robots, hulking warehouses. After which there are the employees. It takes greater than 1,000,000 individuals, most of them low-paid and grindingly exploited, to choose, kind, unload, ship, and ship packages to clients’ doorways inside days of an order. Final week employees took purpose at disrupting this symphony of human capital with walkouts at 4 distinct warehouse varieties within the firm’s logistics chain—a cross-dock close to Chicago, a supply station and a success middle close to Atlanta, and in Southern California, one of many firm’s giant air hubs. The walkouts weren’t centrally coordinated. However they had been all timed to coincide with the corporate’s Prime Day promotional gross sales rush, which ran October 10 to 12.” • Wildcat strikes, hmmm….

Chris Smalls on Albany loss:

Information of the Wired

“Furrygate: A Litterbox of Lies” [The Bulwark]. ” Ever since an episode of The Focus Group that made me conscious of the good Furry Panic of 2022: an apparently widespread perception that kids are “figuring out” as cats at school, with mentioned phenomenon being an outgrowth of the woke important race theorizing / trans / groomer ideology that invaded American school rooms starting January 21, 2021. Throughout that fateful focus group, Stacy from Wisconsin was the primary to lift the difficulty. She recalled a latest job truthful the place ’15 children had been furries. . . . They establish as a cat. Determine as a canine. . . . They’d collars on. They’d a leash.’ One other participant, Jennifer, chimed in concurring that it was an issue in her college district as properly . . . though she finally conceded that she had ‘by no means seen something.’…. The furry tales compounded upon themselves in my Twitter mentions and DMs. They had been shared by a number of different outstanding Republicans. Final week the person with the biggest viewers in all of podcasting, Joe Rogan, received in on the motion throughout an interview with former Democrat and famous furriologist Tulsi Gabbard…. The story is similar in New York, Iowa, Oregon, and elsewhere. There are many accounts from individuals’s pals uncle’s children. There isn’t any—zero, zilch, zip, nada—precise proof of purring whereas pooping.” • Tulsi, Tulsi….

“The Cambodian American Reign of Doughnut Retailers Started in This La Habra Store” [KCET]. “Few individuals know why there are such a lot of Cambodian-owned doughnut outlets in California. Even fewer would draw connections between the Chilly Struggle and people vibrant pink donut containers made fashionable within the Eighties. Because the U.S. battle in Vietnam prolonged into Vietnam’s neighbors, the Khmer Rouge got here to energy in Cambodia, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing a whole lot of 1000’s. Refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia first arrived in Orange County by the use of Camp Pendleton in 1975. Amongst them was a person who would later be referred to as the ‘Donut King’: Ted Ngoy. Ngoy, his spouse Suganthini, their three kids, an adopted nephew and two nieces had been sponsored by a church in Tustin. Working as a church janitor and a gasoline station attendant at evening, Ngoy noticed the close by doughnut store, and its meals that reminded him of the Cambodian rice flour pastry nom kong. Seeing the regular stream of donut clients impressed Ngoy to begin a enterprise of his personal. Ngoy’s church sponsors helped him grow to be the primary Southeast Asian accepted into Winchell’s administration coaching program. In 1979, after gaining expertise working a Winchell’s on the Balboa pier in Newport Seashore, he purchased a small doughnut store in La Habra known as Christy’s the place his spouse and youngsters labored to maintain the store working. It is a acquainted story of the reliance on unpaid household labor within the ‘mom-and-pop’ ethnic financial system. When Suganthini turned a U.S. citizen, she took the identify Christy. Because the Khmer Rouge worn out between 1.5 to three million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979 and displaced a whole lot of 1000’s extra, Ngoy was steadily rising his doughnut empire in America. This area of interest enterprise created an financial pipeline for newly arrived refugees from Cambodia. By the Nineties, there have been roughly 1,500 Cambodian-owned doughnut outlets in California.” • I actually don’t know the place to file this, so it goes right here.

* * *

Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a verify if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me photographs of vegetation. Greens are high-quality! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you would like your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it initially of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From TH:

TH writes: “This Pampas Grass is on the Vandenberg House Power Base in Lompoc, California.” The blue mountains!

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