Culture Break: Tummel: This Ship Is Sinking

This song popped into my head recently. It's from the album Payback Time. If the title strikes you as somewhat ominous, well, you're probably right.

At any rate, this is from a recording session, and if nothing else, these guys are having fun:

Another Empty Threat

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States:

President Donald Trump indicated he wouldn’t allow federal aid for states facing budget deficits from the coronavirus outbreak unless they take action against “sanctuary cities” — municipalities that prevent their police from cooperating with immigration authorities.

“We would want certain things” as part of a deal with House Democrats to aid states, he said at a White House event on Tuesday, “including sanctuary city adjustments, because we have so many people in sanctuary cities.”

“What’s happening is people are being protected that shouldn’t be protected and a lot of bad things are happening with sanctuary cities,” he added. Trump has long complained about the cities and has previously sought to cut off their federal funding unless they end the policies.

He's really good at making threats. Unfortunately for him, they generally amount to nothing -- but that's not the point: he assumes that those on the receiving end with fold. Unfortunately for him, as commenter ColoMtnWoman points out, this issue has been litigated, and he lost. (Actually, a quick google search shows that the Trump administration has lost cases on this issue in the Ninth, Seventh, and First Circuits, and won a case in the Second Circuit. It appears that the Supreme Court has yet to rule on this issue.)

There's also the fact that Congress has the authority to allocate funds, not the Executive: if Trump wants to withhold grants to states, he has to get Nancy Pelosi's permission. Good luck with that.

None of which alters the fact that our President is a mean-spirited, racist, petty, vengeful blowhard.

Giggle du Jour: Math Is Hard

I really shouldn't laugh at the educationally challenged, but . . . .



With thanks to commenter Max_1 at Joe.My.God.

We're Now Officially A Global Pariah

Thanks, Trump. It only took three years:

Global leaders have pledged to accelerate cooperation on a coronavirus vaccine and to share research, treatment and medicines across the globe. But the United States did not take part in the World Health Organization initiative, in a sign of Donald Trump’s increasing isolation on the global stage.

The cooperation pledge, made at a virtual meeting, was designed to show that wealthy countries will not keep the results of research from developing countries.

The meeting also represented a symbolic endorsement of the United Nations body in the face of Trump’s decision to suspend US payments and condemn its leaders as subordinates of the Chinese Communist party. China and the US have accused each other of bullying and disinformation over the coronavirus outbreak, damaging efforts to secure cooperation at the G20, the natural international institution to handle global health outside the UN.

Read the whole thing -- it's not very long, but it points up the fact that we've got a problem.

Via Digby, who coments:

This is what it’s come to. We are not only no longer leading the world (which is fine…) we aren’t even participants in efforts to save people in a global pandemic. We are now officially a pariah state.

Not that I blame other countries for moving on without us. Why would you want miscreants like Pompeo and Trump interfering in important decisions?

Review: Bill Willingham, et al.: Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days)

Yet again, from the late and sorely missed Epinions.

Volume 7 of the collected issues of Bill Willingham's Fables, Arabian Nights (and Days), introduces the Arabian Fables, in the person of Sinbad, who heads a delegation from Baghdad -- but it's the Baghdad of the Homelands, not of this world. The Adversary hasn't penetrated that far yet, and the Arabian Fables are taking care to insure that their flight is not the helter-skelter thing that the Western Fables were forced to suffer. There are negotiations to be undertaken, a task for which Prince Charming, the Mayor, is not particularly well suited; he's forced to call on King Cole, the former Mayor, to take over as chief diplomat. However, there's perfidy afoot that may bring the whole thing to ruin -- but you've got to be really sneaky to get past Frau Totenkinder.

While the dialogue and personalities in this one have most of the sparkle of the earlier volumes, there's a lot of this segment that's plainly expository -- we learn about djinni, for example, from two different sources. And some of the characters -- particularly Sinbad's vizier, Yusuf -- seem to occupy a ground somewhere between stereotype and caricature. The most refreshing parts of the action take place at the Farm -- Boy Blue's sentence for making off with magical artifacts has been commuted to two years' hard labor -- but again, there's a lot of exposition.

There are a couple of subplots that are fairly entertaining, but one is left with the inescapable conclusion that the story's a little thin.

There is, in fact, a side story involving two of Gepetto's wooden puppets, Rodney and June, who fall in love and beg Gepetto to give them real flesh. He agrees, but there's a price to be paid.

The drawing style in the main story is fully consistent with the rest of the series -- no surprise, it's still being penciled by Mark Buckingham. The story of Rodney and June, penciled by Jim Fern, shows a noticeable shift -- it's somewhat more abstract, but still very clean and clear.

All told, I can't really summon up a great deal of enthusiasm for this one; what there is is mostly on the strength of the subplots. The main story just doesn't have that much going for it.

(Vertigo, 2006) Collects Fables #42-47.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yep, it's Sunday again, and we've got neat stuff:

Live Cornish Music, Ancient Egypt (or not), X-Men Again, Hamlets, Baroque Plus, a belated Easter Bunny, and more

Scoot on over and enjoy.

Today's Awww! Moment

With thanks to commenter Desert_Joe at Joe.My.God.:

Today's Must-Read: Bad Publicity Helps

I'm sure you're aware that the small-business loan fund under the CARES Act ran out of money very quickly. Why? Because too much of it was going to companies that in no way could be considered "small busnesses".

The Treasury Department issued new guidance on Thursday encouraging publicly-traded companies to return their coronavirus stimulus loans by May 7 as Shake Shack and other public companies have faced backlash for receiving funds meant for small businesses.

While small business owners struggled to secure loans under the Paycheck Protection Program in the two weeks before the $350 billion fund ran dry, dozens of publicly traded companies secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, drawing criticism from watchdog groups and lawmakers.

How could these loans have gone to publicly traded companies to begin with? Well, for starters, Trump fired the inspector general who was supposed to be overseeing these programs -- probably to be sure his own companies (which are not publicly traded) could get their hands in the pot.

And then there's this:

Designed for businesses with 500 employees or less, the initiative also included exceptions for big restaurant and hotel chains, along with franchises, with less than 500 employees per location.

That opening allowed some publicly-traded restaurant and hospitality companies to seek and secure millions of low-interest loans from the government.

(Emphasis added.)

Gee, I wonder who wrote that into the bill? Hint: It wasn't Nancy Pelosi.

Via Joe.My.God. The comments on Joe's post are worth reading, particularly this article from NYT, courtesy of commenter corram nobis.

Welcome to the Nineteenth Century

Courtesy of the FDA:

After recovering from the novel coronavirus, Andy Cohen signed up for a program to donate his antibody-rich blood plasma to help those still fighting COVID-19. But Cohen says he was ultimately turned away, due to the FDA’s “antiquated and discriminatory” restrctions on gay and bisexual men donating blood.

Although the FDA recently relaxed the policy, gay and bi men are still barred from donating blood — and plasma — unless they abstain from sex for three months. But Cohen notes that no such restriction applies to heterosexual people.

Here's his full commentary:

It would be nice to have a Food and Drug Administration that believed in science.

Culture Break: Linkin Park: Lost in the Echo

Another group that I happened on somehow, and became wildly enthusiastic. The did some tough stuff.

Giggle du Jour

I don't think I need to comment:

Love the Evangelicals out there preaching that they are not going to have something invisible control their lives.

Give it a sec.

— YS (@NYinLA2121) April 21, 2020

With thanks to commenter jixter at Joe.My.God.

Right-Wing "Values"

Today's lesson comes from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick:

Claiming that he was “vindicated” by businesses being shut down by states’ stay-at-home orders, Patrick said on Monday night during a Fox News interview that the new plan to reopen Texas businesses was “long overdue.”

The Texas leader then doubled down on his grim argument for allowing people to be put at risk of death from COVID-19 to help the economy recover from the damage brought on by the outbreak – a proposal that was immediately met with a flood of criticism.

“What I said when I was with you that night is there are more important things than living,” Patrick told Fox News host Tucker Carlson, referring to when he first made the suggestion last month. “And that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us.”

The next question, which these wise leaders never seem to ask, is "What kind of country are you saving for your children and granchildren?"

This sort of made me think:

“And I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die,” he added. “But man we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game and get this country back up and running.”

These people -- and by that I mean "Republicans" and maybe some Democrats -- seem to think that things in this country are just the way they've always been. There really is something of a 1930s flavor to a comment like that -- maybe we need a good world war to get things back on track. Except these days, no one knows what the track is. We don't even have a unified vision of what our country is or should be. Yes, we've had ideological differences in the past, but we used to be able to find a middle ground. That doesn't seem possible any more. It takes a major disaster -- like a pandemic -- to get our representatives to work together. And it has to be really major -- nothing piddly like a hurricane.

And of course, coming from a Republican, you just know that Patrick is not talking about himself or his family -- he's talking about you and your family.

Vie Joe.My.God.

Critter Chronicles --Addendum

I forgot to mention seeing a large group of robins in one small area of the park, all busily scurrying a few steps then stopping to listen, the way robins do. I'm not used to seeing such large groups -- over a dozen -- in a relatively small area. Come to think of it, I'm seeing a lot of robins, period, in the park and around home.

At any rate, one did find a worm -- pulled it out of the dirt, banged it on the ground a couple of times, then swallowed it in one long gulp.

We also had a mutant robin in the neighborhood, but I haven't seen it in a while. Large patches of white on its back and breast -- in fact, the breast was almost all white. It was much more timid than the other robins -- maybe it knows it sticks out.

Critter Chronicles

This may become a department here, with no specific time or day for posting. Inspired by my friend Terry, who replied to an e-mail largely concerned with what I had seen in the park that day with "You're so newsy!"

So here's some news that's not about the Plague, or the incompetent in the White House, or any of the other disasters, major and minor, that are considered "news".

To bring this up to date, here's just a few comments from recent wanderings. (Yes, I try to stay in as much as I can, but I really can't deal with spending days at a time at home. So I put on my armor -- mask and gloves -- and venture out to the park, which is theoretically closed, but try to keep Chicagoans out of their parks. Closing the parks doesn't really make much sense to me -- people are being careful about maintaining distance from each other, and especially along the lakefront, which has some of the highest population density in the country, the park is the main place that people go to walk, or run, or ride their bikes, or give their dogs a walk.)

Down at the Zoo, which, like every other public attraction, is closed, the black-crowned night herons are back and are starting to refurbish their nests. I remember a few years ago, when they first started nesting in the Children's Zoo, there were maybe eight or ten pairs. Now, I've lost count, and the nests have spread from the north edge of the red wolf habitat to almost the entire Children's Zoo. (There's a story here: the herons apparently first started nesting on the island at the south end of South Pond, which is administered by Lincoln Park Zoo. The Zoo staff, being very conservation minded -- the herons are listed as "endangered" in Illinois -- set the island up as a nature reserve, with signage on the boardwalk opposite the island. The birds decided they liked the Children's Zoo better.) The herons seem to prefer rather spindly trees, like birches, which is odd -- they're quite awkward when clambering around the branches. They're rather bulky birds for their size, with huge feet much better suited to wading in muddy ponds than perching on a skinny branch.

Speaking of herons, I saw a great blue flying around North Pond. Don't know if it was planning on taking up residence are just passing through. It's a bit early in the season, I think, for there to be many fish coming out of winter quarters -- although on sunny days there are turtles basking on some of the larger branches that have fallen into the pond. It's just a few, so far, but I remember one time I counted sixty-four out basking, and another two or three swimming, while walking along one side of the pond.

There are no large flocks of geese grazing on the lawns like there will be later this summer -- they've all paired off and are concentrating on getting ready for goslings. You see them in pairs now, and ditto ducks -- I saw a couple of pairs of wood ducks at North Pond, in addition to the omnipresent mallards.

And of course, there are squirrels. At certain times of day, they seem to be everywhere, busily foraging and trying to remember where they had buried goodies, just in case. For some reason I find squirrels particularly entertaining. I remember one summer, in a former residence, I was sitting the back yard when I heard a scrabbling behind me. I turned just in time to see a squirrel diving behind a slab of limestone that was leaning against the neighbor's garage; I looked up and there was a very disgruntled hawk -- not sure if it was a peregrine or Cooper's hawk -- just alighting on a branch. A near miss. At any rate, I had a confrontation with a Lincoln Park squirrel the other day. The squirrels of Lincoln Park are legendary -- shameless beggars, they used to come up and practically demand to be fed. Not so much any more, but this one was a classic. Sadly, I had neglected to put my usual store of cashews in my bag. The squirrel was not pleased.

And I should mention the flowers. At this point, there are still scillas -- great swathes of blue under the trees in parts of the park -- and daffodils are coming into full bloom. And there are still hellebores in flower. There are still magnolias blooming, and grape hyacinths are starting to blossom. And the trees, finally, are starting to leaf out -- there are faint washes of green, like watercolors, on some of the branches.

So that's the news of the critters in the park so far this spring. We'll see what they're up to as the season progresses.

Review: Bill Willingham, et al.: Fables: Homelands

I reviewed most of this series at Epinions. Now you get to read the reviews here.

Bill Willingham's Fables: Homelands gives us the adventures of two of Fabletown's denizens who have gone missing: Jack, who is suspected (with good reason -- as Beast points out, Bigby Wolf told him "Always suspect Jack first.") of having made off with the contents of one of the late Bluebeard's treasure rooms; and Boy Blue, who seems to have made off with several of the town's magical artifacts, specifically the Witching Cloak and the Vorpal Sword.

We start off with another of Jack's schemes to make his fortune -- except this time he's starting off with a fortune. He heads to Hollywood to make -- well, with Jack, it's never quite sure what his goals are, since he can't go public -- but he's going to make a splash. He sets himself up as a production company, with layers of front men to keep himself out of the public eye, and begins work on a fantasy trilogy -- the story of Jack. (No one ever said he was short on ego.) He's brought Jill with him on this jaunt. She just wanted to get out and see the world, but winds up living in Jack office in a series of antique dollhouses (she's rather diminutive). She's not real happy about that.

If this is Willingham's take on Hollywood and its workings, it's a little heavy handed. Jack has set himself up to be the biggest shark in an ocean full of them, and pretty well succeeds: we get a picture of Jack's character in this one, and it's not pretty. He's forgotten, though, that there's always payback -- this scheme works out just like the others have.

Boy Blue's goals are somewhat different: he's busily carving his way through the Homelands to get to the Adversary. He wants the Adversary to be history, and he wants Red Riding Hood, the real one, the one he fell in love with. There are a few surprises, but Blue is up to them -- he's a lot sneakier than we thought. And he's working for someone even sneakier than he is.

We also get to meet Mowgli, of Jungle Book fame, who's one of the "Travelers," Fabletown's spies in the mundy world. The new mayor, Prince Charming, has a special job for him.

This one is a lot of fun, from the swashbuckling adventures of Boy Blue in the Homelands to the machinations of the Adversary (and we finally find out who that is) and Prince Charming.

The art is up to the usual standard, and there are even distinct shifts in style when the characters are telling their histories that set off the narrative into a real "once-upon-a-time" mode. There's one thing I haven't mentioned before, and that's the borders around a lot of the pages. They give the feel of an old story book and add a lot to the fairy tale feel of the books.

This volume takes us back to the main narrative, and although the Jack story tends to go on a little too long -- I mean, we know Jack's a creep, right? We don't really need the repetition of just what a piece of work he is -- the Boy Blue story line more than makes up for it. I'm calling it a solid 4.

(Vertigo, 2006) Collects Fables #34-41.

What's New at Green Man Review

As tends to happen regularly, it's Sunday again, and that means more reviews at Green Man Review:

Ailette De Bodard’s Xuya Universe, Mutants, A Fairport Boxset, A Trip Up the Thames, Dinosaurs, of a sort, and other neat stuff

ANd it's all there waiting for you.

Another WTF? Moment

The right, and especially the members of the Trump regime, are expert at turning reality on its head:

The largely white protesters who oppose social distancing measures to protect the public from COVID-19 are like Rosa Parks, who waged a historic battle for racial equality, right-wing economic commentator and White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly insisted Friday.

“I call these people modern-day Rosa Parks. They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore told The Washington Post, in one of at least three instances of this astonishing comparison.

He also told CBS News: “It’s interesting to me that the right has become more the Rosa Parks of the world than the left is.” He said in a YouTube video quoted by The New York Times: “We need to be the Rosa Parks here, and protest against these government injustices.”

So, let me see if I've got this right: the government doing its job and trying to save people's lives is "government injustice". I would have thought it came under the heading of providing for the common welfare.

And lawless vigilantes (who, incidentally, showed up at the Michigan state capitol armed to the teeth with their AR-15 penis substitutes) are freedom fighters.

As for Moore -- well, this seems to be representative of his take on things:

He once quipped that Trump’s first act as president would be to kick a Black family (the Obamas) out of public housing (the White House), according to The Atlantic.

Only the best and the brightest.

Via Joe.My.God.

Political Ad of the Month

I don't usually post political ads -- mostly because, since I don't watch TV, I never see them.

This one, I think, should be aired repeatedly on every Fox affiliate in flyover country:

This is the most devastating political ad I’ve seen in years. It reveals the truth about Trump and China, and that truth is ugly. pic.twitter.com/52cNf9Ay9u

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) April 18, 2020

It's in response to this.

Read It and Weep

Pew has done another survey. This one should give you pause:

Today, about half of Americans (49%) say the Bible should have at least “some” influence on U.S. laws, including nearly a quarter (23%) who say it should have “a great deal” of influence, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Among U.S. Christians, two-thirds (68%) want the Bible to influence U.S. laws at least some, and among white evangelical Protestants, this figure rises to about nine-in-ten (89%).

Here's the breakdown:

It gets worse:

All survey respondents who said the Bible should have at least “some” influence on U.S. laws were asked a follow-up question: When the Bible and the will of the people conflict, which should have more influence on U.S. laws?

The more common answer to this question is that the Bible should take priority over the will of the people. This view is expressed by more than a quarter of all Americans (28%). About one-in-five (19%) say the Bible should have at least some influence but that the will of the people should prevail.

Two religious groups stand out for being especially supportive of biblical influence in legislation, even if that means going against the will of the American people: Two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say the Bible should take precedence over the people, and half of black Protestants say the same. Among Catholics (25%) and white Protestants who do not identify as born-again or evangelical (27%), only about a quarter share this perspective.

I've been saying for a while that evangelical Christians simply don't believe in democracy -- their whole religious philosophy is founded on authoritarianism.

However, all is not lost:

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s broad opposition to biblical influence on U.S. laws among religiously unaffiliated Americans, also known as religious “nones,” who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” Roughly three-quarters in this group (78%) say the Bible should hold little to no sway, including 86% of self-described atheists who say the Bible should not influence U.S. legislation at all. Two-thirds of U.S. Jews, as well, think the Bible should have not much or should have no influence on laws.

One thing that tends to get glossed over, if mentioned at all, in reporting on the doings of the "religious" right, is that they're a minority. Unfortunately, over the past couple of generations, the Republicans have managed to put too many of them into positions of influence.

Time to clean house.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Thought for the Day

With thanks to commenter Boreal at Joe.My.God.

The Next Step

On the road to one-man rule. Well, one man and a host of incompetent "advisors". Who needs Congress anyway?

Donald Trump is threatening to use a never-before-employed power of his office to adjourn both chambers of Congress so he can make “recess appointments” to fill vacant positions within his administration he says Senate Democrats are keeping empty amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Trump opened his daily virus press conference on Wednesday by griping about Senate Democrats blocking tens of his nominees, alleging many otherwise would be working on virus-related efforts. He offered few specifics, however, on how the federal virus response might be different if a substantial amount of those individuals had been approved by the upper chamber.

Article II, Section 3, Clause 3 of the US constitution gives a president the power to adjourn both chambers if they cannot agree on an adjourn date. No chief executive, however, has ever used it.

Call it a trial balloon. He wants to see how bad the blowback is going to be -- or what Sean Hannity says.

And I can't quite shake the feeling that he is running scared about November -- there's something of panic in this latest threat.

Via Joe.My.God.

Culture Break: Joaqin Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, Adagio

I don't remember where or how I first came in contact with Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, but it's become a regular on my playlist. The Adagio is a prime example of over-the-top romanticism. I have the recording by the Romeros:

Scapegoating

With Trump, it's always someone else's fault. Especially if it's an international organization:

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is halting funding for the World Health Organization pending a review of its response to the initial coronavirus outbreak after the organization criticized his restrictions on travel from China.

Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging and covering up" the coronavirus crisis, specifically the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China. He took particular issue with the agency's criticism of his order to temporarily deny entry to the U.S. by most foreign nationals who had recently been in China. The order was issued Jan. 31, when China was the center of the pandemic.

"With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns about whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible," Trump said. "The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.

"It could have been contained at its source," he added.

That last statement is, at the least, debatable. There's no telling how many asymptomatic carriers had left the region for other parts of the world when the scope of the problem was discovered.

This is telling:

"Well, we're going to be dealing with countries," Trump said, adding that he's going to "channel" that money to places that need it.

Hmm -- let's see -- Russia? Turkey? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Or just anyplace that has a Trump hotel or resort?

In addition to reflecting Trump's pettiness and vindictiveness, it's also indicative of his willingness to dismantle the world order -- Trump has no use for international agreements that do not reflect his vision of America's interests (read that as "Trump's interests"). The idea of "cooperation" of completely foreign to him. (And, or course, one has to wonder how much of his disdain for the international community is dictated by his allegiance to -- or fear of -- Russia. After all, Trump has alienated our allies, weakened the Western alliances as well as our major international treaties, all of which is to Russia's benefit.)

And withholding funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a major pandemic -- well, that's sort of par for the course for Trump, who never thinks about consequences for anyone but himself.

Via Joe.My.God.

He Said It Again

I have two possibilities for the origins of statements like this:

“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total … and the governors know that,” said Trump. “The authority of the president of the United States is total.”

He probably thinks that's the case -- he's cited Article II of the Constitution, saying it says he can do whatever he wants. (Anyone who's read it knows it says just the opposite.) And Moscow Mitch's Senate has rubber-stamped that idea.

I really can't decide whether he's setting us up for the idea of Trump as President for Life -- which assumes he's much more of a strategic thinker than we have any evidence for -- or whether he's living in a fantasy world built around his own megalomania.

Hmm.

I'll take "megalomania" for four hundred, Alex.

Antidote

So peaceful:

From @cat_densuke: “#お家に居ればだいじょうぶだぁ” #catsofinstagram pic.twitter.com/ULyw2jtnVo

— Cats of Instagram (@catsofinstagram) April 14, 2020

With thanks to commenter jixter at Joe.My.God.

This week at Green Man Review

And once again, a treasure trove of goodies. The tip of the iceberg:

Music from Aaron Copland, A History of Bananas, Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints and Other Matters

You know the drill -- click on over and enjoy.

Today in Disgusting People

I know, I know, but they've been crawling out from under their rocks for the last three years. This one is choice:

In times of national crisis and fast-spreading tragedy like the novel coronavirus pandemic, you can always count on the people who promote sociopathic political worldviews to reveal their awful, deeply inhuman natures for all the world to see—and they don’t come much more sociopathic than immigrant-hating Nativists.

Sure enough, the leaders and spokesmen of key Nativist hate groups—notably the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), both designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center—have taken the lead in opposing any release of immigrants currently held in detention centers around the United States despite the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities, as Michael Edison Hayden reports at Hatewatch.

Some of the statement coming from these racist groups sound reasonable, until you stop to think about them. This is just one example:

Another writer at CIS’s website, Andrew Arthur, argued: “Releasing ICE detainees takes them out of a facility where sanitary protections are readily available, testing is accessible, quarantine can be accomplished, and treatment is guaranteed. If that is not joining forces with the current pestilence, I am not sure what is. Detention is the best resistance to pestilence.”

This is pure horsepucky. It's well documented that the conditions at these facilities are appalling -- overcrowded, unsanitary, inadequate food, and practically non-existent medical care.

If these "nativists" want America reserved for the real Americans, they should all go back to Europe.

Read the whole thing, and also the article linked to at Hatewatch.

Footnote: I can't help but wonder how many of these people consider themselves good Christians. How many times does their Bible tell them to welcome the stranger?

Review: Bill Willingham, et al.: Fables: Mean Seasons

Or, A Year in the Life. Another Epinions orphan.

Bill Willingham's Fables: Mean Seasons focuses mostly on Bigby Wolf and Snow White and their children, and some upheavals in the lives of the Fables of Fabletown.

The first two stories, "Cinderella Libertine" and "Dog Company," give us a view of Bigby's activities now and back when. It seems that Cinderella, after her failed career as a revolutionary (Animal Farm), has gone to work for Bigby, undercover, while Bigby himself is revealed to be no stranger to black ops, blowing a clandestine Nazi operation. (Think Frankenstein Redux.) "The Cruel Hot Summer" brings us back to Snow, who delivers six cubs (much to her surprise) coincidentally with the mayoral election, which results in a landslide for Prince Charming, because of his campaign promises. In "The Long Hard Fall," Snow is at the Farm with the babies and Bigby has made off for parts unknown, while Beauty and Beast, their successors as Deputy Mayor and Sheriff, respectively, of Fabletown, cope as best they can. We learn in "The Dark Killing Winter" that transition to the new administration is not all that smooth: Boy Blue, who knows how everything works, disappears, along with several magical artifacts. And Beast decides, as an act of clemency, to commute Flycatcher's (the Frog Prince) sentence of community service, much to Flycatcher's dismay. We also witness the first of a series of mysterious deaths, which seems somehow connected to a letter from Frau Totenkinder to Snow about her seven children. And in "Until the Spring," we learn that there was indeed a seventh child.

Although it's not clearly defined, in terms of a real "plot," there is an overarching storyline to this volume, but it grows in your awareness rather than being plainly laid out. Fortunately, Willingham's storytelling is engaging enough that I didn't feel the lack. The dialogue, however, sometimes goes flat: it's fairly matter-of-fact to begin with, but the situations are generally enough to carry it. That's not always the case in this collection.

The art, a team effort by Mark Buckingham and Tony Akins, pencils, and Steve Leialoha and Jimmy Palmiotti, inks, maintains its appeal, but once again, is somewhat constrained by the heavy scripting. The babies, though, are adorable.

It's a filler volume, really, a sort of breather before the next chapter of the fight against the Adversary resumes. It's still a good read, but I can't really put it at more than a 3, maybe just a smidge above.

(Vertigo, 2005) Collects Fables #22 and 28-33.

Read It and Weep

A new poll from Pew on where people believe the CoVID-19 virus originated:

While a plurality of Americans (43%) say the new coronavirus most likely came about naturally, nearly three-in-ten (29%) say it most likely was created in a lab, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted from March 10 to 16, 2020, as part of the Center’s nearly yearlong Election News Pathways project.

Around a quarter of adults (23%) say it is most likely that the current strain of coronavirus was developed intentionally in a lab; another 6% say it was most likely made accidentally in a lab. A quarter say they aren’t sure where the virus originated.

Note that it's already been determined that CoVID-19 is a mutation of the SARS virus. But, thanks to Fox News and Glorious Leader, that bit of information got buried.

Here's the breakdown:

 

What's appalling about this is that less than half the people in this country believe the virus is a natural mutation. (And let's face it, viruses mutate like crazy -- that's why there are so many varieties of flu.) And even worse, look at the age breakdown: the 19-29 year-olds are the group with the largest number of -- what shall I call them? How about "paranoid fantasists"?

I fear for the future.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today's Must-Read: Quid Pro Quo

Yet another example of the axiom "There is no bottom". This is just the way Trump operates:

As we work to find out the scope and goals of the White House’s seizure of medical goods across the United States, a simpler pattern is coming into view: the White House seizes goods from public officials and hospitals across the country while doling them out as favors to political allies and favorites, often to great fanfare to boost the popularity of those allies. The Denver Post today editorialized about one of the most egregious examples. Last week, as we reported, a shipment of 500 ventilators to the state of Colorado was intercepted and rerouted by the federal government. Gov. Jared Polis (D) sent a letter pleading for the return of the equipment. Then yesterday President Trump went on Twitter to announce that he was awarding 100 ventilators to Colorado at the behest of Republican Senator Cory Gardner, one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot this year. As the Post put it, “President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives.”

. . .

Were these a subset of the same ventilators? Like money, amidst the COVID-19 Crisis, all ventilators are fungible. It’s hard to know whether President Trump even knew in this case that his pandemic task force had swiped away five times as many ventilators just days before. Indeed, we still don’t whether this is all a central part of the White House’s crisis strategy – grabbing supplies from blue states to hand out to endangered Republicans or red state allies – or simply a layering of corruption over the general chaos.

Remember when wunderkind Jared Kushner said "These are our stockpiles"? No we know what he meant.

Read it. It's more than infuriating.

Via Digby, who adds:

I think this is the tip of the iceberg. There is going to have to be a full pandemic profiteering commissions after this is over. The question is whether or not the Democrats will be willing to “look in the rearview mirror.”

I'm not aT all confident of the Democrats' willingness to hold Trump's feet to the fire -- although they did impeach him. Of course, with Moscow Mitch in control of the Senate, another impeachment will go nowhere. But if we succeed in booting Trump and his criminal gang out of office in November. . . .

Today's Must-Read: A Follow Up

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly is acting no more -- he resigned. Ads a folliow-up to this post from Monday, here's a must-read from Digby that adds a couple of dimensions to the story:

You do what he wants or else. And if it blows back on him, you will take the fall. That’s the deal.

Why so many people eagerly sign on to that is beyond me but there seems to be an endless supply of them:

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday after traveling nearly 8,000 miles to Guam to berate thousands of sailors on Monday, later saying he stood “by every word,” and then subsequently apologizing for the remarks within the span of about eight hours.

Modly submitted his resignation a day after audio of his speech on the carrier was published by Task & Purpose. James McPherson, Undersecretary of the Army, will be tapped to replace Modly, a defense official told Task & Purpose.

His remarks were even more tone-deaf and -- well, "clumsy" is inadequate, but it will have to do -- than I had known from initial reports:

“Crew of the Teddy Roosevelt, you are under no obligation to love your leadership, only respect it,” Modly said. “You are under no obligation to like your job, only to do it. You are under no obligation, you are under no obligation to expect anything from your leaders other than they will treat you fairly and put the mission of the ship first.”

“That’s your duty,” Modly continued. “Not to complain. Everyone is scared about this thing. And let me tell ya something, if this ship was in combat and there were hypersonic missiles coming in at it, you’d be pretty fucking scared too. But you do your jobs. And that’s what I expect you to. And that’s what I expect every officer on this ship to do, is to do your jobs.”

It's like he's trying to a WWII movie hero. What he is is a jackass.

Read the whole thing -- it's probably not an eye-opener -- we should have known -- but it's illuminating nvertheless.

Culture Break: Kazaky: Dance and Change

Been a while since I've watched any Kazaky videos. This one seems to have all the elements:

If You Do Something Stupid, Double Down

In this instance, speaking of Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, who, as you will remember, fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt for trying to take care of his crew. Well, he outdid himself this morning:

The Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly blasted the now ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as "stupid" in an address to the ship's crew Monday morning, in remarks obtained by CNN.

Modly told the crew that their former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, was either "too naive or too stupid" to be in command or that he intentionally leaked to the media a memo in which he warned about coronavirus spreading aboard the aircraft carrier and urged action to save his sailors.

The acting secretary accused Crozier of committing a "betrayal" and creating a "big controversy" in Washington by disseminating the warning so widely.

The only betrayal is that Trump didn't look good. (t'[s still unconfirmed, but the word is that the firing originated with Trump.)

This is the crew that cheered Capt. Crozier as he left the ship. Modly must have a death wish -- except that those who are really serving have too much respect for the service.

And what are the odds that this is another distraction to throw into the mix. There is, after all, an election coming up, and you can bet Trump is shitting bricks over his chances of winning another term.

If you're still wondering what kind of human being -- and I use the term in its biological sense -- Modly is, note this from arch-conservative Bill Kristol:

Perhaps worth remembering that Modly is Acting Secretary because he, unlike his predecessor, had no problem acquiescing to Trump's pardoning war criminals.https://t.co/gq25wnggn3

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 6, 2020

Via Joe,.My.God.,

Review: Bill Willingham: Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers

I found Bill Willingham's Fables series to be more engaging as I worked my way through it. March of the Wooden Soldiers offers an even richer story with layers of deception and intrigue -- not to mention angst and guilt -- and a couple of side stories that continue to fill out the major characters.

We start off with a little history on Boy Blue, Snow White's assistant. Every year, Blue and a group of friends gather for an evening of hard drinking. They were the last to escape the Homelands, but the evening is not marked by celebration: there's a lot of guilt that they escaped while others perished. Blue's story is particularly poignant: the last refugee to reach their final stronghold was Red Riding Hood, and she and Blue fell in love. When the final battle came, he sent her to the ship that was carrying the refugees to safety, while he went back to the battle. Unknown to him, she left the boat and went back to fight at his side, while he, through the gift of his commander's magic cloak, was able to transport himself to the ship after it had left.

And now Red Riding Hood has made it to the Earth. But there's something a little off -- her reaction to meeting Blue again is extreme, and not at all friendly. Bigby, as usual, is suspicious. And then a group of men appear, wanting to buy guns. Lots of guns. And, as it turns out, they're not exactly men.

In the meantime, Snow is pregnant, the result of that little camping trip with Bigby, aided and abetted by Bluebeard's hypnosis. She's not really very happy about it. And Prince Charming, having finished off Bluebeard, is searching his apartment for whatever gold, jewels, silver, or anything else of value hasn't gone to fill the coffers of Fabletown. (Bluebeard died intestate, so his fortune reverted to the government. But Prince Charming isn't really interested in full disclosure.) He has a brilliant idea: he's going to run for Mayor.

Things develop, and Fabletown is under attack by the wooden soldiers of the title. Since Bigby is away on his investigation, Snow takes command of the town's defenses, even enlisting the witches to work in Fabletown's defense -- for free, which doesn't make them happy at all, but their options are limited.

This one is a lot of fun, and I think my favorite in the series so far. The story is multi-layered, there's a lot of intrigue, but nothing you can't figure out if you want to. It's so well done, though, that you don't bother. Willingham's script sucks you right in, and it's really easy to just go with the flow of the story.

Mark Buckingham, Craig Hamilton, and P. Craig Russell penciled this volume, and the visuals are just as appealing as the previous collections. The battle scenes are exceptionally effective, but the whole thing is worth looking at. My one objection to this one, and looking back, to the series as a whole so far, is that Willingham scripts fairly heavily -- there's not a lot of room for the visuals to carry the narrative, and it never gets past the idiom of illustrated story and into true graphic literature, with that particular synergy between the elements.

Collects Fables: The Last Castle, and Fables #19-21 and #2-27.

(Vertigo, 2004)

What's New at Green Man Review

We've all been hunkered down writing reviews, so we've got some great stuff this week:

Amano dark chocolate bars, Terry Gilliam’s Fisher King, Béla Bartók, Ellen Kushner on Steeleye Span, Danish String Quartet Live and Other Matters

So hunker down yourself, scoot on over, and enjoy.

Today in Petty Vindictiveness: Two Firings

Trump likes to fire people. We knew that when he first made his mark (such as it was) as a reality TV star. This one was a long time coming:

U.S. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday that he is firing the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community who was involved in triggering an impeachment probe of the president last year.

In a letter to key lawmakers, Trump said he planned to remove the official, Michael Atkinson, in 30 days, saying, “it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general.”

“This is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general,” he said.

"Fullest confidence", of course, means a reliable sycophant. Atkinson's big sin, of course, was that he did his job and reported the Ukraine whistleblower's complaint to Congress. Besides, Trump doesn't like the intelligence community anyway.

For the second firing, he used a surrogate:

[Capt. Brett] was removed from duty after a letter he wrote pleading for help for those onboard his ship who are infected with the coronavirus leaked to the media.

The Navy announced his removal on Thursday. According to acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, whether Crozier intentionally leaked the letter or not, he "did not take care" to ensure it was not leaked.

As of Thursday, 114 sailors on board the Roosevelt had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Crozier's letter to Navy officials, which leaked on Tuesday, warned that the tight quarters onboard the ship did not allow for the safety of the crew. He asked leadership to offload most of the sailors on the ship in order to allow for social distancing and sanitizing the ship.

So, try to take care of the service members under your care and you get fired.

And the surrogate is madly trying to cover his ass:

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Friday that his firing of the captain who raised the alarm about a coronavirus outbreak onboard a U.S. aircraft carrier was the "hardest thing that I've ever had to do."

But he did it anyway, because:

"I know that he loves this crew. I know that the crew loves and respects him. But that's not an excuse for exercising the judgment that he did," Modly said.

If anyone displayed poor judgment in this, it's the" Acting" Secretary of the Navy.

All via Joe.My.God.

Another PR Stunt

After Trump made a big to-do about sending Navy hospital ships to New York to help with the overcrowding in hospitals there -- well, who could have known?

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

And it's deliberate:

But the reality has been different. A tangle of military protocols and bureaucratic hurdles has prevented the Comfort from accepting many patients at all.

On top of its strict rules preventing people infected with the virus from coming on board, the Navy is also refusing to treat a host of other conditions. Guidelines disseminated to hospitals included a list of 49 medical conditions that would exclude a patient from admittance to the ship.

And the Trump regime continues its stellar response to the pandemic.

Maybe he should put Jared in charge.

Via Joe.My.God.

I Know This Feeling

with thanks to commenter Michael R at Joe.My.God.

Today in Disgusting People -- A Twofer

Franklin Graham and his minions move to the head of the line:

The group building a makeshift tent hospital for coronavirus patients in Manhattan’s Central Park is asking all volunteers to read and follow a “statement of faith,” including rejections of same-sex marriage and abortion.

As the toll of the outbreak on New York continues to increase dramatically, Mount Sinai Health System has been working with the relief group Samaritan’s Purse to open a 68-bed respiratory care unit that will begin treating patients as early as Tuesday.

Praised by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the tent facility is one of several efforts to expand medical capacity across the city: A 350-bed facility is set to be erected at the Queens tennis arena home of the U.S. Open, while a temporary hospital has been constructed inside a Manhattan convention center.

Yet unlike the other projects, Samaritan’s Purse has asked all volunteers working at the field hospital — including health workers — to pledge to 11 declarations, Gothamist reports, including one that defines marriage as “exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female” and another that says “human life is sacred from conception to its natural end.”

The Christian group was founded by Franklin Graham, a minister with a famous preacher as a father and a history of making incendiary comments, and has specifically sought out Christian medical staff for the tent hospital.

I'm surprised they haven't demanded that patients sign the same pledge.

And then there's this:

As some local lawmakers questioned whether LGBTQ patients would receive equal treatment, a spokesperson for de Blasio told Gothamist that the field hospital must adhere to Mount Sinai’s nondiscrimination policy.

“Our record on human rights is clear; and we are confident that the joint effort by Mt. Sinai and Samaritan’s Purse will save New Yorkers’ lives while adhering to the values we hold dear by providing care to anyone who needs it, regardless of background,” she wrote to the news blog.

I think it's telling that the statement came from de Blasio's office and not Samaritan's Purse.

Things like this are, I think, one of the elements that differentiate the loudly religious from normal people: they can't even follow the teachings of Jesus (see Matthew 25:31-46 for a good summary) without attaching strings, on the order of "you must belief what we believe" -- even to volunteer to help those in need.

Add in Jerry Falwell, Jr., who decided to re-open Liberty University:

As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health

service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. said he told Mr. Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Dr. Eppes said in an interview.

So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. An additional eight were told to self-isolate.

What did anyone expect?

Once again,that unique combination of arrogance and self-importance that marks the blatantly religious.

Culture Break: Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

This is probably my favorite Vaughan Williams: