Daily Activities
We definitely have a cadence over here. You need one in order to stay sane. Yesterday’s news of losing Floyd Cardoz to Coronavirus really rattled me. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up yesterday. Keeping positive is important and yesterday was not that kind of day.
Evening activities are sometimes walking before dinner but yesterday I couldn’t. Cocktails are at 6, dinner afterward and then a film. Last night we watched Crip Camp. An excellent documentary about a 60’s summer camp for disabled people who grow up and become the voice for equality.
The movie is inspiring. This group of people became the voice for many who did not have one. They mobilized and as a group was able to make their needs heard. That is why we have lobbyists to be the voice in our Government so that a group of people gets a seat at the table. The restaurant industry is realizing that they need one as so many people are now unemployed with rents hanging over the owner’s heads. It is how our country works whether you like it or not.
This movement began in the 60’s and took until the first Bush administration to finally force companies to obey the laws put forth from earlier administrations. It was a long road. Even then the Republicans didn’t give a shit about these people because their attitude was that there were not that many of them so it wasn’t worth the cost. Just like today, why lockdown when only some people will die?
Republicans care about themselves and want no Government interference and to keep what they have in their own pockets. Democrats care more about their fellow man and have empathy towards others who do not have the means. That is a broad statement but when you start watching documentaries from the past, we quickly forget that this type of behavior has been going on forever. It has made people lose faith in Government. I read a line in a book this week that said, all Government is bad but somehow it is not as bad when it is the Democrats.
Highly recommend this movie. It will stick with me for a very long time. FYI – this movie was produced by Michelle and Barack Obama. I am looking forward to seeing their voices make perhaps a bigger impact post-WH in the years to come.
Comments (Archived):
cued up to watch–thanks.like the one they produced that won an academy award as well.heard a line today that went something like ‘when this is over one thing is assured, that everyone everywhere will have a less positive attitude towards government then when this started’. Cuomo notwithstanding,be well.
Things were irreversibly shaken up in Italy during the black plague, socially, economically, politically, and religiously. I’m hoping for our own north american version of a shake-up.
I’ve read that after the Black Death came to Europe war and its frequency began to accelerate.
Yeah, the hundred years war.
Domino effect thereafter.
I mean, my grasp of history isn’t the greatest, but didn’t the Spanish Influenza happen AFTER World War I? So one doesn’t necessarily follow the other, if that’s what you’re getting at.
.The Spanish Flu of 1918 was intertwined with WWI and came home to the US with returning troops.It was not fairly called the Spanish Flu.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
It started during WWI. The theory is that it got going with British troops in France and then went with them across the landscape, infecting everyone around. They were the original super spreaders of the disease. This was not a morale boosting story back home and was censored. It was never originally a Spanish thing at all.People can lose their rationality and good manners when there’s a killer virus on the loose. Everyone comes under suspicion. Things can turn ugly quickly. Unfortunately violence is a default state when things go bad.
.The increase in wars in Europe in the time after the BP — the 1350s — is more correlated with the advance of weapons, tactics, fiefdoms colliding, the development of nationalist tendencies, and the avaricousness of royalty.Europe has always been a place a fellow could find a war since the year 1000, Norman Conquest and all that.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Also the fact that for the first time, the Catholic Church had a viable opposition- the Reformation, which was able to spread thanks to the printing press. Literacy spread and more people were reading the Bible as well, which kind of made people go, wait a second, that’s not in the Bible. So more independent thought, and turning away from the Catholic Church.
.You had your Crusades (1095-1492), your Renaissance (1300-1600), your Reformation (1517-1648), your Age of Enlightenment (1715-1789) and the Guttenberg Press in 1440.Martin Luther and John Calvin and Henry VIII snatched power from the Catholic Church over such things as the sale of indulgences to get into Heaven. It was the printing of Luther’s 95 Theses that started the Reformation.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
.The Black Death killed 25% of the European population, mostly the masses — leaving the intelligentsia and the wealthy in greater control.It was an indiscriminate killer that came out of China and followed trade routes docking first in Sicily, but thereafter spreading from ports.I would vote for Joe Biden for President before I would wish that on N America.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I recall my Italian Renaissance textbook said 80% and it killed indiscriminately, regardless of class. That’s why poor people could just walk into a dead rich person’s home and just kind of take over their stuff. Also a lot of skilled middle class people died, and the demand was huge for somebody, anybody to take over skilled jobs, like notary positions to execute wills, etc. Which is why there was such a levelling up like never seen before. Unskilled workers just kind of walked into positions and learned on the go, which they could do because literacy was so widespread in Italy. But this is specific to Italy. Not sure about the rest of Europe.
The people in my office have largely gone home, so I’ve started jogging to the far photocopier/supplies room. I was surprised how badly I needed it, feels so great. I can definitely see the benefits of a big house now.
.I once worked in an office with 100 persons at large gray metal desks, no partitions. Once a week I had to stay from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM and check every desk to ensure it was locked and no documents were left on desks. I had to sit within 5′ of a phone on a long cord that I had to take to the bathroom with me.The A/C was on, but without the 100 warm bodies and the ceiling lights it got very, very, very cold and I would dress like I was outside in frigid conditions. It was so quiet that I imagined I could hear my own heart.I did some of my best work ever in that environment.The officer’s mess brought me coffee, dinner, a midnight snack, and breakfast because I couldn’t leave the room.It was considered bad duty, but I used to volunteer to take anybody’s shift if they had a legit reason.In hundreds of nights that damn phone never rang and then one night it did. Scared the crap out of me. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I imagined I could see my heart beating through my shirt.”This is a test.”JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Haha. I heard someone say the best way to work your way into management [in the hospitality industry?] is to become the night auditor for a hotel. Then you basically make all the decisions that a manager does. Then just apply for a day-time manager job. I think a friend of a friend did that, which is how he’s doing his MBA now.
The news about Flyod was shocking to say the least. I have been to Tabla perhaps around 2002 and remember saying hi to him. He was a pioneer, started the modern Indian trend.
The restaurant industry is realizing that they need one as so many people are now unemployed with rents hanging over the owner’s heads.First everybody is up the creek in many jobs and many industries as a result of what is going on. Restaurants are no more special or worthy and in particular fancy and expensive restaurants or for that matter salt of the earth places. Where I live all of the restaurants could go out of business and we would still eat just like we did growing up in our own kitchen. Nice to go out every now and then but not essential. Growing up we went out 1 or 2 times a year. Takeout if ever rarely.That said other than unemployment benefits I don’t think it is the government’s responsibility (meaning we all pay for it) because business owners (especially in the restaurant business) took on high rents thinking that there was less risk than what typically is the case. Plenty of bad and unforeseen things happen when you run a small non VC funded business you just never hear about it and it doesn’t happen to everyone else at the same time and doesn’t make the news. The restaurant owners are making like this is about the poor employees but we know that is not what they are worried about. They didn’t start the restaurant for the employees but sure nice to give people jobs for sure.This is quite different than the government keeping airlines working. Why? Airlines are an essential service. Restaurants and in particular the fancier ones are not (and there are many replacements and places you can get food). Ditto for companies like Boeing (important for a host of reasons including national defense so it is not in the same category as Shake Shak and Danny Meyer or USHG).Do I feel bad for them? Absolutely it’s terrible. But then again I didn’t follow a path that meant I did things in life so that I’d make my main source of income waiting tables or tending bar (getting paid in cash). (You didn’t also remember you had dreams and aspirations and worked toward those in any and every way you could).
Uh-huh. Check out Pelosi’s demands on the bail out bill and tell me who cares about themselves.
A virus isn’t politically affiliated. It will infect, and may kill, Republicans and Democrats alike. If the powers that be (on both sides) don’t learn lessons from this crisis they will be unseated.
Statements like Republicans are bad Democrats are good are very disheartening especially in these times. It would be the same to say Entrepreneurs are good VC’s are bad, Costal elites are smart flyover rubes are dumb. It doesn’t matter if you reverse each of these statements which of course people do.Trump is no more a Republican than Sanders a Democrat. Trump won because people that never voted for anything other than a Democrat voted for Trump. Notice I did not say voted Republican as the mid-terms showed.Trump insulted every mainstream Republican in the primary included eviscerating the entire Bush family, Republican royalty.I could elaborate further, but I’m just wasting typing strokes.
This saves me having to type strokes. Thanks.
.”Republicans care about themselves and want no Government interference and to keep what they have in their own pockets. Democrats care more about their fellow man and have empathy towards others who do not have the means.”When one reads a statement that idiotic, it colors one’s respect for the writer and undermines the authority of all the other thoughts contained therein.You have plumbed a new low.Stay safe.[In the USA and Canada it is “toward.” In the UK and Australia, it is “towards.” Something writers know about. Small thing.]JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…