Metamorphosis

 

                                                  Metamorphosis                                             

In a restaurant section in Pittsburgh several tables of people were hectored, chased away and one table that stayed had invading people drink their drinks. Some guy carrying a bicycle was reportedly roughed up. The information has been recorded on phones; there has not been any official report I could find. According to the single news report I could find, the attackers were part of a demonstration against police behavior in Minneapolis.

So people in Pittsburgh are to be hassled in the street because of an event in Minneapolis by the local government And what are they to do? What corrective action are they to take--if they believe that action to be warranted? 

Kafka's enemies were official, passive and bureaucratic, never malignant and his fellows. We may be writing a new page in the giant tome of human hostility.

A Thought

 

                                                   A Thought

One of the elements of Warren Buffet's thinking is how sensible he is. This, on a holiday, is his advice on something non-financial:

“If I gave you a car, and it’d be the only car you get the rest of your life, you’d take care of it like you can’t believe. Any scratch, you’d fix that moment. You’d read the owner’s manual, and you’d keep a garage, and do all these things. And you get exactly one mind and one body in this world. And you can’t start taking care of it when you’re 50. By that time, you’ll rust it out, if you haven’t done anything. So you should really make sure that you just remember that you’ve just got one mind and body to get through life with, and to do the most with it.”

stats

 

Astounding chart.

The Flu and the Zombie Apocalypse

                                 The Flu and the Zombie Apocalypse

A major element of this pandemic, aside from paranoia, is ignorance-induced speculation. Here is some knowledge-based speculation, at least as paranoid-inducing, from The Scientist. This fits nicely with the rumors that Big Ten athletes are showing myocarditis when infected with the Virus.


"One of the earliest links between influenza and neural dysfunction was a correlation between the 1918 Spanish flu, caused by a subtype called H1N1, and an epidemic of Parkinson’s a few decades later. In the 1940s and early 1950s, diagnoses of the neurodegenerative disease appeared to increase abruptly, from 1–2 percent of the US population to 2.5–3 percent, then fell back down to 1–2 percent, Smeyne (a neurobiologist interviewed in the article) says. “Basically, 50 percent more people in those years got Parkinson’s.”

The evidence to suggest that influenza infection caused the neurodegenerative disorder was tenuous, to say the least, but the correlation was enough for Smeyne to investigate further. With his colleagues, he shot nonlethal doses of H5N1 or H1N1 up the noses of six- to eight-week-old mice, then tracked how the viruses spread through the animals’ nervous systems. The results were startling, he says: some viruses weren’t blocked from entering the brain by the blood-brain barrier—a semipermeable layer of cells that separates the central nervous system from the body’s circulation. H5N1, for example, could easily infiltrate nerve cells in the brain and kill them, and it appeared to especially target the dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra. And while the H1N1 flu strain couldn’t cross the blood-brain barrier, it still caused central nervous system immune cells called microglia to flow into the substantia nigra and the hippocampus, causing inflammation and cell death in the area.

“So these were two different flus, two different mechanisms, but the same effect in a sense,” says Smeyne, who moved to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia in 2016. “They were inducing inflammation and death in the parts of the brain that we see degenerate in Parkinson’s disease.”

Smeyne’s experiments aren’t the only ones to suggest that viral infections can contribute to neurodegenerative disorders, and the connection is not limited to influenza. Several different viruses, including measles and herpes, can give rise to symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) in rodents, for example. And levels of herpesvirus are higher in the brains of people who died from Alzheimer’s than in those without the disease, while some HIV patients develop dementia that appears to be associated with the infection.

“Viruses are often ignored in relation to neurodegenerative diseases,” Yale University neurobiologist Anthony van den Pol tells The Scientist. “That’s in part because there’s no clear sign that a virus causes a neurodegenerative disease. But it might.”"

So, every bug comes with the potential of some population damage somewhere at sometime in the future, neurologic, reproductive, personality. We, from rheumatic fever to Bright's Disease to Shingles are just waiting for collateral damage to emerge. 

That should be quite concerning to a culture that has so much faith in fine-tuning Nature.

 

The Social Justice Industry

No culture can afford to ignore the talents of a large percentage of its citizens. Apparently not many cultures can afford the solution.

                                     The Social Justice Industry

By selling expensive liberal arts degrees in “global gender studies” and “feminist studies” [not to mention degrees in “bitterness studies,” “indignation studies” and “grievance studies”] American universities have not only created a new generation of the exhaustively woke, but have also created a booming industry where the new profession of being a full-time social justice warrior can be a profitable gig.

Aside from paying the high-priced professors to persuade the campus community of its inherent racism, the University of Michigan doled out nearly $8.4 million for diversity staff in 2018, where 26 of these “diversicrats” raked in more than $100,000 a year in cash compensation, according to an analysis of the university’s salary database by the center-right American Enterprise Institute. When accounting for staff salaries plus benefits, the university’s 93 diversity-dedicated administrators reaped in $11 million total annually.

Young America’s Foundation spokesman Spencer Brown told The Federalist they’ve been tracking the explosive growth of the social justice industry for years. Isolated campuses continue to breed extremism that ultimately gave rise to the prosperous self-righteous profession today and also gives way to items such as the anti-American 1619 Project.
“Social justice has indeed turned from a cottage industry, largely limited to the bubble of academia, into a multi-million dollar enterprise,” Brown said.

Indeed, according to McKinsey & Company in 2017, American corporations spent about $8 billion annually on diversity trainings, a number certain to skyrocket following the death of George Floyd. Glassdoor.com reports the average base pay for diversity and inclusion consultants meanwhile, a job title on the rise ranges from $70,657 to $107,000 a year.

(From Perry)

Men in Masks

                                                            Men in Masks

Got up in the morning and performed my usual ablutions. After shaving I dressed in the dark bedroom with the wife still sleeping, grabbed my rucksack, got to the car, and drove to work.
I parked and walked to the office through long corridors, past people I knew and knew not, all murmuring good wishes behind masks and nodding.
At my desk, drinking my first coffee, a secretary stopped at the door.
"What happened to you?" she asked, her eyes wide above her mask.
"Huh?" was my astute reply.
"Your face!"
I walked with her to the bathroom and inspected the mirror. A one-inch stripe of thick blood was clotted from my ear to my jaw. I scrubbed, she inspected, and we found a deep nick below my sideburn from my early shave. For ten minutes I had walked through the halls and ridden elevators with the face of a man who had just lost a knife fight and no one had said a word.
In a land and time of intense concern for one's fellows, I found that disappointing.

DeJoy and the Nature of Anger

 

                               DeJoy and the Nature of Anger

One element that is overlooked in this political swamp is how these politicians treat American citizens.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., went after the postmaster general for his past business dealings with Amazon. However, DeJoy said he did not have any financial interest in the giant online marketplace.

The member of the so-called Squad, a group of progressive Democrats who are female freshmen in the House, said that about 40% of Amazon’s shipments go through the Postal Service. Since DeJoy had an interest in both, this posed a conflict, Tlaib said.

“This appears to be a classic example of conflict of interest and insider trading. Yes or no, will you commit right now to divest any and all financial interests in Amazon to avoid illegal insider trading?”

DeJoy responded: “That was a lot of time on an issue that doesn’t matter. I don’t own any Amazon stock.”

Tlaib shot back: “You have financial interest. You can call it whatever you want.”

DeJoy: “I don’t own anything with Amazon.”

Tlaib: “Your financial interest in Amazon will continue to be problematic, illegal, and a conflict of interest. Regarding this matter, you have a simple choice, Mr. DeJoy. You can either resign or divest that interest.”

The Michigan Democrat didn’t spell out what conflict or financial interest she was talking about.

Tlaib also accused DeJoy of “dismantling the Postal Service,” and appeared to warn that he could end up in jail.

“This impeached president, Mr. DeJoy, you have to realize, has a tendency of employing crooks who end up in a lot of trouble for their illegal activities,” she said, adding: “You are not in good company right now, so do the right thing and resign.”

                                                  #

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked the postmaster general: “Why are these guys out to get you? What is it?”

DeJoy diplomatically responded: “I don’t—they have their own concerns. I’m assuming they’re legitimate with them.”

Jordan said: “You assume they’re legitimate. Why are they out to get you?”

The Ohio Republican then said he thought it likely Democrats were not sincere and were looking to use language that might create panic before the 2020 election.

“I mean, Mr. DeJoy, they’ve had people protesting at your house. They’ve been doing it for weeks, 90-some of these people have already called for you to resign,” Jordan said of House Democrats.

                                                     #

“Am I the only one in this room that understands that we have a $10 billion a year loss?” DeJoy said. “Am I the only one in this room aware of the OIG reports that have stacked up?”

At that point, Cooper referred to Trump’s recent granting of clemency to Roger Stone, a veteran GOP operative charged and convicted of lying in special counsel Robert Mueller’s ultimately fruitless investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia.

“Mr. DeJoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?” Cooper said.

A murmur arose in the rather empty, socially distanced hearing room, as people saying, “Oooh.”

Someone said, “Pitiful.”

DeJoy laughed and said, “Oh, my God.”

Cooper, stone-faced, said: “You have two seconds.”

DeJoy, shaking his head and smiling, said: “I have no comment on that. It’s not worth it.”

Anger, regardless of its source, will accept any outlet.