DAME
@fryatside
Replying to
@big_business_
Miami heat calling me, should I pick up ?
10:08 PM · May 27, 2021·Twitter for Android
Friday, May 28, 2021
.529, Anthony
Anthony Duckett
@a_duckett
What exactly is Miami Heat culture? Can anyone explain it?
10:09 AM · May 28, 2021·Twitter for Android
😂
Oh my goodness, I didn't realize the "Heat" played last night. Could have sworn they were off until tonight. AP's first sentence:
MIAMI -- — Another game. Another blowout.
113-84 the final. I don't know what the "Heat" cognoscenti are going to say after this series. Are they going to realize that Pat Riley is the Wizard of Oz, just a man behind a curtain doing it with smoke and mirrors? That nature beats culture in a survival of the fittest? That this is a .529 team over the last seven seasons? Will they turn on Riles? No, yes, they won't mention it, and no.
The Case for Laughter
When I began my researches in philosophy one of the first philosophers I read was Rene Descartes. Western, rationalist, etc. The "mind-body problem"; the essence of man is a "mind in a vat."
?*frowny face*
No. The emotions, man, the emotions you miserable Frenchman. Christ. So I moved on, I don't know to whom, but I did not find many chuckles. I found learned treatises on war, on death, on the "meaning of life," which seemed in all instances to be preamble to death. When I got to the 20th century the essence of man seemed to come down to sex in a vat. With the exception of Richard Rorty there was no place in philosophy for light-heartednes. "Serious. This is serious stuff, suh. We must be serious. One does not cackle."
Either before or after philosophy, I don't remember the order now, I did learned researches into art, mainly painting. Now, painting has always given me a calm that I get nowhere else. I don't know how to explain it any better. For most people I know, "ennui" is the better fit. I love art, I loved art, I loved reading about and looking at art. I didn't pay much attention to subject matter; if a painting made me "feel" I didn't care if it was a Van Eyck or a Rothko. But at some point I received a vague impression that the portraiture, the epic scenescapes were, like philosophy, serious. Great battles, great men, monarchs, heroism. I have frequently illustrated this here blog with a header image of, usually, some ridiculously overwrought dramatic painting to poke fun at something.
A few weeks ago, I think it was when I was following Manchester City-Paris Saint-Germain, I googled "happy" "joy" "party," like that, to find a classical painting as illustrative accompaniment to a post of the glee I felt at a City goal. Nada. The adult closest I could find were bawdy, drunken tavern scenes. I found a couple of paintings of children happily playing some game, in one, a boy dancing with his hands over his head looked old enough for me to use and I did.
Playing. *light bulb* The human species has lived lives that have been "nasty, brutish, and short," absolutely. That's just fact. The Dark Ages, the Plague, the Rape of Shanghai, war, Donald Trump. People have had terrible times But hardly any found life so painful to endure that they ended it. What got them through? Not that you will find any of this in philosophy or great painting, but people at all times, and in the worst of times, had moments of fun. They played games, told jokes, had sing-alongs, whatever. My son is a social worker and works with at risk children of incarcerated parents. He called me in his car on the way home from the field one afternoon and told me of a sight he had seen: a little girl pushing her little brother in a shopping cart through a derelict project that they called home. The kids were playing; in horrific conditions they were having a little fun. I remembered asking my mother one time what it was like living through the Depression. "Oh Benjamin, we were too poor to notice." Made me laugh. I remembered reading The Good Earth. "Lung" or whatever the husband's name was, was an illiterate Chinese peasant. His wife, whatever her name was, was an illiterate Chinese peasant, but they farmed out of the Chinese good earth a good, prosperous lifestyle for awhile. When the Boxers came through they may have been Martians or Americans for anything Lung knew of the goings on beyond his farm. Same with my mother. The Depression didn't touch her life as a coal miner's daughter. They had what they had and didn't have what they didn't have. Mum had a great life.
Laughter is not a lifestyle. Laughter is a moment. Serious is a lifestyle. Dreadful is a life condition but human beings leaven their seriousness and their life horrors with moments of laughter and play. Every human life has done that in every time of their life.
Human beings are distinguished from the other animal forms by the size and quality of our brains so I understand Descartes boiling us down to minds in a vat. Indeed, humans have little to recommend ourselves besides that. We're not a very handsome species. Our sight is not as keen as a falcon's; our hearing not that of a dog; we can't scent things like bloodhounds. Based on the quality of the senses if you were a Martian before the Ice Age and surveyed the lifeforms on Earth, you wouldn't have picked those ugly, deaf, dumb and blind beings for survival, much less domination of the rock. But still, man as mind-in-a-vat was absurd.
What distinguishes humankind from the other animals is laughter. Yes, dogs can smile, yes, they can play, yest they can have fun. But do any of them have a Henny Youngman? It is that, the moments when we lighten our world and others' with our ability to laugh, to cackle till our facial muscles ache and our bellies hurt that is the most distinctive feature of our species. Man is at his best at play.
Remembrance
All of Manchester mourns the death seven years ago today of the great American-British sports philanthropist Malcolm Glazer, founder of Manchester "Buccaneers" Football Franchise.
Special condolences, and thanks, to Mr. Glazer's sons Avram, Bryan, and Joel who continue to run the franchise to this day.
We are forever in their debt.
Thursday, May 27, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+127 (May 27)
What to expect today? A comparable, mid high-30's, drop in Cases; mid-20's drop in Hospitalizations; mid high-teens drop in Deaths. Vaccinations are going to continue to lag badly. Let's see...
Changes over 14-days
-35% Cases.
-23% Hospitalizations.
-20% Deaths. WHOA! 20!
Daily averages last seven days
22,999 Cases. Down 163/day
27,504 Hospitalizations. Down ~440/day.
So, Cases are falling much less rapidly in the last week than have Hospitalizations.
496 Deaths. That's going to be down. It has been in the lower half of the 500's. Yes, down 26/day from the Biden+126 iteration.
1.80% D-H rate. Down six one-hundredths.
Okay, here we go, Vax:
1,618,194 Vax. Yep, down about 83k/day. Running out of the available willing.
Herd Immunity (90%) Day
November 12. Oh hell, that's bad. Yeah, eleven days worse.
POJO should still get an A...
President Biden Grade...No: B. If he misses one of the seven-days and misses the extra-point of HID he's at 89.7. If he had kicked the extra point he would have had an A with 90.9.
President Biden's proposed $6 trillion budget is too much, too far-reaching, too future-binding. I oppose it. I am open-minded but there is a strong presumption against it in my mind that would have to be overcome.
COVID-19 BIDEN+126 (May 26)
I couldn't wait for the Quasi's last night. I was too tired.
14-day changes
-37% Cases.
-23% Hospitalizations.
-17% Deaths.
Perfect demonstration of the Death Lag, about two weeks. C's are unchanged from BIDEN +125; H's are unchanged. But the fall in Deaths, from 12% BIDEN+125 is pronounced. The is tremendous news.
7-day daily averages
23,162 Cases. Down 900+/day.
27,946 Hospitalizations. Down over 550/day.
522 Deaths. Down 21/day, which is substantial from a base of 543 at BIDEN+125.
1.86% D-H rate. Down four one-hundredths percent.
1,703,162 Vax. Down 47k/day over seven days.
Herd Immunity (90%) Day
November 1. Worse by three days.
President Biden Grade B
Overnight the total of Americans killed in the coronavirus epidemic reached 592,432. That number is greater than the population of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the fifty-third largest city in the United States. The U.S. is 82,568 Dead short of the dead in the Spanish Flu of 1918/19. At the 900/day assumption used when this calculation started Spanish Flu Conquest Day will be August 27. It will not be August 27 because we have not killed 900/day for some time. Using a more current 600 Deaths/day SFCD will be October 12.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
.529
Miami HEAT
@MiamiHEAT
·9h
We know where this series stands. We know where we need to get it back to. #HEATCulture
🙄
Feel Free to Fantasize About Trump Behind Bars
...
This gives me the opportunity to note that during one of those early real estate disasters, I wrote a column referring to him as “an extremely well-dressed pile of debt, wearing an unusual haircut.” That was in 1992, and next year I want you to remind me to celebrate my 30th anniversary of making fun of Donald Trump.
Oh, well done. Gail Collins gives The Gray Lady color.
Important immune cells survive in the bone marrow of people who were infected with the virus or were inoculated against it, new research suggests.
Together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and who were later immunized will not need boosters. Vaccinated people who were never infected most likely will need the shots, however, as will a minority who were infected but did not produce a robust immune response.
1889, May 26. California
This storm started eastward, from the California coast on the 26th of May...
At its start, the storm appeared to be an ordinary cyclonic precipitation of the type that furnishes the rainfall through the eastern part of the United States.
The great storm...had general characteristics which made it unusual for such an extensive change of weather. The storm moved at an unusually slow pace, and at a regular speed. High temperatures were shown in some areas; while low temperatures from frost to snow prevailed in others. Local storms in this vast cyclonic movement were unusually violent. Saturation was dense and rainfall enormous.
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+125 (May 25)
Boy oh boy, I was just about to call it quits.
14-day changes
37% Cases. That's better. No, that's the same. Worse than BIDEN+123.
23% Hospitalizations. That's about the same. That's exactly the same.
12% Deaths. Oh boy, that's worse. By one point from BIDEN+123, which was two points worse than BIDEN+122.
So things have stagnated. Hmmm.
7-day daily averages
24,034 Cases. Cases haven't stagnated in the last week anyway. Down 535/day (?).
28,499 Hospitalizations. Nor H's. Down almost 500/day. What is going on with Deaths? Are they up for the week?
543 Deaths. Down 24/day. I'm confused.
1.90% D-H rate. That's down! (right?). YES! Down five one-hundredths point. That's substantial. I've never been lost but I was mighty confused once for three days. I'm so damn tired I can't think straight.
1,750,524 Vax. Down (?) Yes, about 28k/day.
Herd Immunity (90%) Day
October 29. That's back a whole bunch of days...Two days.
President Biden Grade (pretty sure B) B
Night.
Lol. Okay. When I first saw this earlier today,
I was really impressed. Jimmy Butler was mature, serious, and forthcoming. Jimmy is an asshole by nature...and I mean that totally positively!--and I have seen him not be forthcoming with reporters post-game and be not serious. I really liked this. Then...I read this:
But some looked at Jimmy Butler’s disposition and stat line — 10 points on 10 field goal attempts and a -34 in his minutes — and saw something worrisome.
Oh.
(Shams Charania said on ESPN last Friday that sources told him there had been "very, very testy moments" between Jimmy and the coaching staff and other players. Jimmy admitted in April that "things are not always good" between him and Spo and that they got into a "little predicament" during a game against San Antonio.)
Uh oh.
Nooo!!!
And all of a sudden I had this feeling come over me of having been snowed by the kinder, gentler, more mature Jimmy.
The Banality of Democratic Collapse--Paul Krugman
Important column by Krugman, persuasive to me. You know my thing about democracy and legitimacy: process-determinative, circular reasoning--according to democratic theory itself a freely-elected leader is ipso facto legitimate. He may be a bad leader but he's legitimate. You blame the voters in democracy. Marco Rubio: "The voters knew exactly what they were getting when they voted for Donald Trump." Hitler was not Germany's problem; German voters were Germany's problem. I was really comfortable with that position, considered it a settled point in my mind. Paul Krugman brings me back in this excellent column. Leaders do have something to say about legitimacy in a democracy--namely what they say. The Krugman Correction comes with serious risk: absolution of voters. That cannot be done in democracy without doing violence to democratic theory. .and absolve voters, they are the final arbiters voters but leaders who repeat lies, the same lies, over and over again, erode, pollute, undermine, whatever your verb, democratic legitimacy. "I was allowed to believe things that were not true," said Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is still saying untrue things. (The Krugman Correction comes with serious risk that voters, even elected leaders like Greene, are not held accountable. Overwhelmingly, in my view the voters are still at fault.) Such a bizarre statement to me when I first heard it. Who's making you, Cunt? But wait, Krugman makes the point powerfully that "allowed to believe" is a meaningful statement in a democracy, that conversely, by consensus,we are not allowed to believe certain things in a democracy. Lies; "fake news"; "alternative facts"; unscientific science. That is, democratic legitimacy does not obtain in a totally free "marketplace of ideas" where lies are are disseminated as widely as truths. Democratic legitimacy depends on truth and when political leaders tell mainly lies and tell them repeatedly the lies gain currency among voters because voters believe the leader. "What do you like about Donald Trump?" the senator from Cancun asked two Indiana voters in 2016. "Everything," one of them replied. "Whatever Trump says, I believe." It is a theory of authoritarian/totalitarian legitimacy. The two Indiana rubes did not know that the "Two Whatevers", whatever Mao Zedong did and whatever Mao said, was. for a year, the legitimation doctrine of the Communist Party of China after Mao died! Krugman is right, lying leaders have immense power over what voters are "allowed to believe."
.529 Culture in the 305
The Miami "Heat" completed their seventh season post-LeBron on May 16. The team's average win percentage in that time is .529.
Paul Krugman makes a good point in this excellent column.
The Banality of Democratic Collapse
America’s democratic experiment may well be nearing its end. That’s not hyperbole; it’s obvious to anyone following the political scene. Republicans might take power legitimately; they might win through pervasive voter suppression; G.O.P. legislators might simply refuse to certify Democratic electoral votes and declare Donald Trump or his political heir the winner. However it plays out, the G.O.P. will try to ensure a permanent lock on power and do all it can to suppress dissent.
...
...The Big Lie about the election didn’t well up from the grass roots — it was promoted from above, initially by Trump himself, but what’s crucial is that almost no prominent Republican politicians have been willing to contradict his claims and many have rushed to back them up.
...the fundamental problem lies...with the careerists...
...
...the predominance of craven careerists is what made the Republican Party so vulnerable to authoritarian takeover.
... decades as a monolithic, top-down enterprise have filled the G.O.P. with people who will follow the party line wherever it goes.
So if Trump or a Trump-like figure declares that we have always been at war with East Asia, well, his party will say that we’ve always been at war with East Asia. If he says he won a presidential election in a landslide, never mind the facts, they’ll say he won the election in a landslide.
The point is that neither megalomania at the top nor rage at the bottom explains why American democracy is hanging by a thread. Cowardice, not craziness, is the reason government by the people may soon perish from the earth.
I’m tellin’ ya, this is a column that people are going to be talking about for a long while.
This is a good idea, even though it comes from R’s. It’s just common sense it seems to me and could ease concerns about inflation plus get an R or two on board with POJO’s infrastructure bill. If the administration passes on this unexpected blessing it will do so at its dire peril.
George Floyd Memorial Day
Today is the one year anniversary and some are calling for it to be marked as George Floyd Memorial Day. It certainly had an immense effect on the last year and I will quietly mark its importance. Tonight at 8:19 until 8:28:25 I will observe nine minutes twenty-five seconds of silence. (I am not usually too talkative at night anyway but tonight it will be with purpose.)
Monday, May 24, 2021
COVID-19 BIDEN+124 (May 24)
'Bout gave up on you tonight, Quasi's.
14-day changes through May 24
-37% Cases. One point worse than BIDEN+123. But still a brawny decline.
-23% Hospitalizations. One point better than the previous iteration.
-13% Deaths. Two points worse than the previous.
I'm sniveling at one and two point changes in double digit percentages but that's what I do, snivel.
7-day daily averages through May 24
24,569 Cases. Down 700+/day.
28,993 Hospitalizations. Down almost 100/day.
567 Deaths. Oh, I don't like that number. Yep, UP four/day.
1.95% Deaths-Hospitalization ratio. Up seven one-hundreds of a percent, a steep rise as these things go.
POJO's not going to get a good grade tonight.
1,782,714 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day (90%)
October 27. Back three days.
President Biden Grade C
Spanish Flu Conquest Day. The U.S. is at 590,516 total Deaths since the first death. That's 84,484 short of the U.S. Spanish Flu killed over a century ago. At my original base assumption of 900 Deaths/day (which is outmoded) August 26.is the date we would surpass the Spanish Flu dead. We will get there! But it's going to take into September or so.
New Variant Posing Threat, as Global Vaccine Drive Falters
The coronavirus variant first seen in India is rapidly outpacing all others in Britain, a problem for the U.K. and a potential new burden on poorer nations.
Maybe I missed an update but I know that the initial coalescing consensus among scientists was that there was no “Indian variant,” that it was the British variant that was being seen in India. I wrote, with caveats that I was not a scientist, that just from looking at the Indian graph of cases,
the virus there did not “behave” like any previously known variant. The virus blew up like a wildfire and now is burning itself out.
Now, it is the “Indian variant”, B.1.617.2 is its official designation. B.1.1.7 is the British variant. And now B.1.617.2 is spreading in Britain.
Return of the Random Scrub "Heat" Killer
Something that plagued Miami earlier this year. RSHK is back tonight. Bucks and does meet "Bryn" "Forbes". Bryn was averaging 10 points a game this season. Tonight, at the end of the first quarter, Bryn has 14 points on 5/6 shooting, 4/5 from range. Oh, and Milwaukee leads Miami 46-20.
That'll do it for me tonight on this game yinzers. Next, last post for the night will be on COVID.
I noted super "Male Deer" Giannis Antetokounmpo's missed freebies down the stretch of Saturday's game. What I did not know was that this happened:
tweet! That's a turnover. :o A free-throw shooter has to shoot within ten secs of getting the ball from the zebra. Antetokounmpo has a foul line routine, many NBA ballers do, a certain number of dribbles, do this, do that, scratch your ass, whatever. Antetokounmpo is known for the length of his routine, so was "Heat" great Alonzo Mourning, and "Heat" assistant coach Caron Butler was yelling at the refs on this play to enforce the 10-second rule. In this vid you can see zebra #16 beating the seconds with his fingers and right as Antetokounmpo is about to shoot, tweet! That's a turnover. Be goddamned.
Round the Association
Man, the NBA pre-post and post-season have gotten off to a blazing start. Memphis won at Golden State in OT in their play-in Friday night. Yesterday, the “Grizz”, 8th seeds, beat the #1 “No Jazz” in Salt Lake when a last second shot failed to drop for the Angel Moroni.
The “Heat” and “Male Deer” went to stoppage time in their affair in Beer Town.
By their season records the result in Game One between LA-No Lakes and PHX was the chalk but c’mon, it surprises some of us that the forever awful “Suns” beat LBJ and the defending champs.
For the first time in eight seasons the New York “Knicks” hosted a playoff game, against ATL, but with 0.09 secs left Trae Young won it for the “Pigeons.”
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